Mayor’s suspension postponed for eight months

The suspension of the mayor of a small town in another province would not cause much of a stir in Cebu on any other day. But when SunStar Cebu reported on May 16 that Siaton Mayor Cezanne Fritz Diaz had not yet completed his three-month suspension—the punishment the Ombudsman imposed eight months ago after finding Diaz guilty of simple dereliction of duty—it caused a stir. After all, just days earlier, Michael Rama, the mayor of the Visayas’ most populous city, had been preventively suspended. A little over a week after Ombudsman Samuel Martires signed the suspension order, and just days after the shocking news reached Cebu City, Vice Mayor Raymond Garcia was ordered to take over as acting mayor. The difference in the enforcement of the two suspension orders—one punitive, the other preventive—was striking, to say the least. Both Cebu City and Siaton, a municipality of about 83,000 residents in Negros Oriental, are located in Region 7, Central Visayas.

The Ombudsman imposed a three-month suspension on Mayor Diaz and six members of the city’s tender and procurement committee in September 2023. The case stemmed from a complaint filed by a concerned citizen in 2019 about the bidding process for the construction of a two-story multi-purpose building. The successful bidder, Molrow Construction and Supply, was not qualified but was awarded the contract.