City to give 'Kalabasa award' to Gwen over Kaohsiung incident

CEBU, Philippines - Mayor Tomas Osmeña announced yesterday that the Cebu City government will give a “Kalabasa award” to Cebu Governor Gwendolyn Garcia and Cebu Police Provincial Office director Erson Digal for starving the children when policemen in Barili held their Kaohsiung buses for hours last Monday.

Osmeña said it was Garcia who ordered to apprehend the 12 Kaohsiung buses in the convoy because she saw them heading to the southern town of Badian bringing 600 children who will be attending a five-day summer camp activity in Kawasan Falls.

 “If those buses were filled with high-class socialites, Governor Gwen would have them escorted like very important persons. You think they would be detained for hours like the kids? Shame on Governor Gwen, shame on the provincial police,” the mayor said.

“The provincial police are cowards for picking on children. They are not real protectors of the helpless, they bully them. Also, the governor’s suroy-suroy program is only for the rich and not for the poor like street children,” the angry Osmeña added.

Land Transportation Office-7 regional director Raul Aguilos said they will find out from the records of apprehension whether the Barili policemen strictly implement the campaign against unregistered vehicles aside from the Cebu City-owned Kaohsiung buses.

Twelve Kaohsiung buses were used to transport 600 children from Cebu City to Badian, but only four of these were apprehended by the Barili policemen because they were late in setting up a checkpoint.

Apprehended drivers who are issued temporary operators permit for offenses are only allowed to drive vehicles for three days, meaning the drivers of the Kaohsiung buses should claim their licenses from the LTO today and pay the corresponding fine of P1,500 for driving an unregistered vehicle.

Another P1,000 fine will be imposed against the vehicle owner.

Visayas Ombudsman Virginia Santiago said that they will conduct an investigation into the incident.

 “All vehicles should be registered and the driver should have a driver’s license because if not it violates the law,” Santiago said.

Santiago also encouraged the public to report government vehicles that are being used for personal purposes.

Government vehicles are assigned red plates while the green plates are for vehicles under private ownership.

Santiago also said that the police in Barili had the right to apprehend the said vehicles in accord with the failure of registration.

The said vehicle should have had a trip ticket for the field trip.  (FREEMAN NEWS)