Batangas town mayor suspended for 90 days

The Sandiganbayan has suspended the mayor of Taal, Batangas for 90 days on allegations that he approved the purchase of more than P500,000 worth of medicines from a pharmaceutical owned by his relatives.

In a five-page resolution, the anti-graft court’s fourth division said it could not grant the request of Mayor Librado Cabrera that he be suspended for just 30 days, explaining that a preventive suspension normally takes 90 days.

The fourth division said it had no choice but to impose the administrative sanction since Cabrera himself had conceded that the "preventive suspension is mandatory in character and that there are no ifs and buts about it."

In a graft complaint filed in July 2002, Cabrera was accused of buying P503,000 worth of medicines from Diamond Laboratories Inc., owned by his relatives, from January to June 1998. Cabrera’s co-accused is Taal councilor Luther Leonor.

Batangas Gov. Armando Sanchez was directed to implement the suspension order against Cabrera. — Delon Porcalla