CITY OF SAN FERNANDO – The services of the Bataan provincial government grounded to a halt on Monday as more than 1,0000 capitol employees held a sit-down strike in protest of the six-month preventive suspension issued by the Office of the Ombudsman on Gov. Enrique Garcia Jr. and three other officials over alleged graft and plunder in the disposition of a disputed paper mill in Orani town in 2005.
“There are no transactions. The workers are on a sit-down strike,” Senior Supt. Manuel Gaerlan, provincial police chief, said when asked for updates at 11 a.m.
But Provincial Board Member Gaudencio Ferrer said Garcia ordered the capitol closed at 6 a.m., shutting out the employees including board members scheduled to hold their regular session on Monday.
By 9 a.m., Garcia met the board members and mayors in a closed door meeting.
At past 10 a.m., he addressed about 1,000 supporters, announcing he would voluntarily step down if he was not able to obtain a temporary restraining order from the Court of Appeals by Friday, Gaerlan said.
His lawyers filed a petition for certiorari, prohibition and mandamus with a prayer for a TRO, Garcia said.
Garcia’s supporters – women, war veterans, scholars and health workers – carried placards and streamers that expressed love for the governor or criticized Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez for “harassing” their leader.
“Political harassment” was how Garcia called the suspension as well as the graft case the Ombudsman filed two weeks ago at the Sandiganbayan in connection with the “grossly disadvantageous” compromise agreement the provincial government entered with the Presidential Commission on Good Government on the sequestered properties of Baseco, a firm formerly owned by the brother of former First Lady Imelda Marcos.
According to him, the cases progressed because this was Gutierrez’s way of getting back at him. He said she blamed him for the defeat of her brother, Roselier Navarro, in the mayoral race in Samal town in the last elections.
Gutierrez, however, inhibited herself from the cases, documents showed.
Former Mariveles officials filed the Baseco case while former Sunrise Paper Products workers seeking unpaid salaries on the approval of the National Labor Relations Commission brought the case to the Ombudsman.
Garcia, a lawyer-accountant, got entwined in both the cases as he tried to recover unpaid real property taxes due to the provincial government.
The six-month preventive suspension also covered provincial legal officer Aurelio Angeles Jr., provincial treasurer Talento and former provincial administrator (now Balanga City administrator) Rodolfo de Mesa .
Gaerlan and other reporters on the ground called the assembly of Garcia’s supporters as peaceful.
The crowd was expected to grow until Wednesday, Punto Central Luzon learned from a source in the governor’s camp.
Renato Brion, director of the Department of the Interior and Local Government, described the crowd to be “not unruly.”
“Not today, not tomorrow,” Brion replied when asked when he would serve the notice of suspension.
“What will I serve when I don’t have a copy yet [from the DILG national office],” he said by phone.
Deputy Overall Ombudsman Orlando Casimiro, in the Nov. 5 order, said the suspension was immediately executory, warning also of disciplinary action should it not be complied without just cause.
Anti-Garcia forces, reportedly being mobilized by the governor’s political rivals, have not shown up yet at the capitol grounds.
Gaerlan said he has put on standby a crowd management unit in nearby Camp Tolentino to keep peace at the capitol grounds.
