Binay bares suspension campaign

Makati Mayor Jejomar Binay of the United Opposition (UNO) revealed yesterday Malacañang’s alleged plan to suspend him and other city officials in order to pave the way for the appointment of pro-administration personalities to take control of the city government.

The campaign, he said, forms part of the administration’s plan to suspend opposition mayors through sanctions.

The Makati mayor, in a press conference, said he received an order from the Office of the President giving him 15 days to officially respond to a complaint filed by Roberto Brillante, a long time critic of the mayor.

Malacañang is allegedly being asked to suspend the local chief executive along with Vice Mayor Ernesto Mercado and all city councilors.

"The entire elected leadership of Makati will be suspended, and definitely, Malacañang will not appoint people from the opposition to replace us," Binay told newsmen.

According to him, there is an apparent effort to speed up the resolution of the complaint over the hiring of ghost employees. It was filed before the Department of Interior and Local Government last Aug. 10.

The mayor said Malacañang came out with an order last Sept. 1.

Binay said this confirmed reports that he would suffer the same fate of Pasay Mayor Wenceslao "Peewee" Trinidad, who was slapped with a 60-day suspension last week along with his vice mayor and majority of councilors.

"The incredibly speedy action of Malacañang on the complaint of Mr. Brillante is very disturbing. But I am not surprised why this complaint has taken precedence and become top priority for the administration over the many, many other cases gathering dust at the DILG and the Ombudsman," he said.

Binay noted that if these were ordinary times, he would consider the filing of the complaint and the memo from Malacañang as just "normal part of an elected official’s life."

"But these are not ordinary times. The independence of local governments as provided for by the Local Government Code is under threat from a regime that is dead set on taking complete control over the entire machinery of government," he said. "It is perhaps the greatest irony that this lawless regime has on several occasions dipped its hands into the bag of legal and administrative weapons to mount retaliatory attacks on its opponents."

Binay, who is president of UNO, said he will nevertheless reply to the order and will submit himself to the process prescribed by the Local Government Code.

He, however, warned the administration against disregarding the rule of law.

"If Malacañang persists in its devious intentions, I have been assured by the people of Makati, as well as other freedom-loving Filipinos, that they would not stand for it," he said. "It is time to restore sense into our system of law and order."

Binay said the complaint was politically motivated and was baseless since the Commission on Audit had cleared the city government in 2005.

"If there were ghost employees, then their existence would have been noticed by the Commission on Audit. There were no such findings in the COA report of 2005," he said.

He stressed that he, as mayor, is neither involved in the hiring of employees of the city government nor does he sign payrolls.

Former Vice President Teofisto Guingona, House Minority Leader Francis Escudero, San Juan Mayor JV Ejercito, Navotas Mayor Toby Tiangco as well as business leaders, barangay officials and leaders of people’s organizations joined the press conference and expressed support for the Makati mayor.