AFTER ALMOST a month since the issue about the destruction of the mayor’s office broke, former Cebu City mayor Tomas R. Osmeña asked that his contractor be allowed to restore the office “to its 2016 condition.” In a letter to his successor, Mayor Edgardo C. Labella, Mr. Osmeña said his original order was to remove his personal belongings and restore the office to its condition before he renovated it in 2016, but work was disrupted when Mr. Labella’s lawyers intervened. “The work was supposed to continue the next day. However, your lawyers Rey Gealon and Floro Casas, Jr. interfered on June 28 this year. They also brought in elements of the Philippine National Police to the office. This caused the unfinished work was brought to the attention of the media, and the media frenzy immediately followed,” Mr. Osmeña said. Mr. Labella said he will let the city’s lawyers handle the matter. Messrs. Gealon and Casas said the former mayor’s request can be considered a “mere afterthought to evade criminal and administrative responsibility,” considering the cases the city filed against him for “malicious demolition” of the mayor’s office. “It must be recalled that on June 28, 2019, as soon as news erupted on your demolition of the Office of the Mayor, you gave the following statement in a DZMM interview: ‘I decided to remove everything so that he (Mr. Labella) will know what I feels (sic) like…Wala, basta nabuwisit na rin ako (Nothing, I was very annoyed). What can I do?,’” Mr. Gealon said. — The Freeman

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