Rama to Include Other Firms in Closure Order

Mayor Michael Rama has decided that aside from the LBC Express branches, all other financial establishments in the city will also be included in the closure order to be issued by Mayor Michael Rama if they insisted not to hire security guards.

City Legal Officer Jerone Castillo said he and other lawyers at the City Legal Office discussed on Monday that it is not good to single out the LBC Express in the closure order for the sake of fairness.

“When we enforced the law it should be equal to all that are similarly situated, dili kay mo-limit mi sa LBC Express ra,” the city chief legal officer said. This means that those other money forwarding companies and other financial firms that include banks and lending companies.

Castillo said their office is coordinating with the business permit section of the Cebu City Treasurer’s Office so they could secure the list of all financial establishments operating in the city. He also that they had already prepared the temporary suspension of business permits of LBC branches that do not have security guards to secure their establishments, but it was not signed yet by Mayor Rama who was in Manila as of Tuesday.

However, it was observed that some of the LBC branches in the city are already employing security guards to secure their establishments from the robbers.

The city legal officer explained that it was stated in the business permit issued to different establishments stated that the permit may be revoked anytime if the owner failed to comply with its terms and conditions. The lawyer cited one of the terms and conditions of the permit, which states that a valid permit issued “may be revoked for any other good reasons of general and public interest.”

He further argued that failing to hire guards to secure the establishment can be considered already a violation of the terms and conditions.

Mayor Rama said even if the amount involved during the robbery at LBC Express establishments is just very minimal, but such robberies will put the city to bad image.

Meanwhile, because of the series of robberies involving municipal and city treasurers offices here, City Treasurer Diwa Cuevas had requested the Land Bank of the Philippines (LBP) to send its personnel to her office yesterday afternoon to collect their daily collections.

“Amo na lang g’yud nga ideposito inigkahapon kay basin og kita na usab ang mabiktima sa mga kawatan,” Cuevas said.

She narrated that the when Toledo City Treasurer’s Office was robbed last September 7, there were two persons who asked the guards to get inside the City Treasurer’s office in Cebu City because they were hired to repair the air-conditioning units.

The guards refused to allow the men to enter the City Hall. “Wala man g’yud mi mag-request og bisan unsa nga mohimo’g repair. Pagpangawat g’yud ang ilang tumong niadto,” Cuevas said.