Amid Word War on CPDRC shooting brouhaha: Capitol consultants told to stop talking

A gag order was recently issued to all Capitol consultants following the recent word war between one of them and a police official over the shooting incident at the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center.

Provincial administrator Eduardo Habin issued last Wednesday the memorandum directing all consultants to secure first permission from Governor Gwen Garcia before making any public statements relating to their functions, duties and responsibilities.

The memorandum reminded the consultants to perform fully and faithfully only the functions, duties and responsibilities as stipulated in their respective contract, or as may be assigned them by the governor.

However, the memorandum did not include the P1-a year consultancy contracts with former governor Pablo Garcia, Dr. Romulo Davide, and Marisa Fernan.

Those mentioned were: Antero Caña Jr. (consultant on developmental communication), Samson Costanilla (media affairs), Julian Daan (barangay affairs), Marieta DeEgurrola (provincial women's commission), Byron Garcia (security), Pablo John Garcia (information, organization and management), Manolette Dinsay (performance management and productivity enhancement), Rory John Sepulveda (revenue generation and compliance), Cesar Veloso (peace and order and jail matters), and Ernesto Viernes (engineering equipment outsourcing and related services).

The gag order came after consultant Byron, the governor's younger brother, traded barbs with Provincial Intelligence and Investigation Bureau chief Juanito Enguerra over the shooting incident in CPDRC.

Byron earlier theorized that the incident might be an assassination attempt against Simon Lao, one of the detained suspects in the Mandaue mega-shabu laboratory.

But Enguerra, in his investigation report, later contradicted Byron's saying it was not a case of a sniper attack on Lao but of a guard shooting a mad dog from a nearby city jail facility.

This somehow angered Byron who criticized Enguerra for the contradicting report, and even tagged the latter as an "idiot" of crime scene investigation.

Byron then stated publicly his plans to ask acting CPDRC warden Alfredo Abella to file a complaint against Enguerra.

This in turn irked Gwen who said that only her, as the governor, could order a regular Capitol employee about such matter. - Fred P. Languido