CEBU CITY – In her historic fourth term, Cebu Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia vowed to make Cebu “No. 1 one again.”
But as she looks forward to a fruitful stint, Garcia looked back at a bitter past and took a jab at two persons she blamed for a tumultuous end of her third term in 2013.
In her speech during the inauguration ceremony at the Capitol Social Hall Sunday, Garcia lambasted former Department of Interior and Local Government Secretary Mar Roxas and retired Gen. Marcelo Garbo for instigating what she described as an illegal six-month suspension that cut short her third term in 2013.
The 63-year-old Garcia said that before 2013, Cebu was the best province in the country for being “No. 1 in assets, in total income, and competitiveness” and debt-free.
“But the forces of division would not rest. The new party in power in Malacañang saw that it was only by dividing us again that it stood a chance of capturing Cebu in 2013, for the benefit of one of its leaders, who had been salivating at the prospect of becoming President in 2016,” said Garcia, who is the first lady governor in Cebu and the first to earn a fourth term.
Led by Garbo, then director of the Police Regional Office in Central Visayas, Garcia said “I was forced out of this Capitol” while she sought legal remedies to contest the suspension.
“For weeks while I sought relief from the courts, I was holed up here, under siege by a bootlicking police general and a battalion of his men. They turned this Capitol into a garrison, and day and night, this general threatened to use force and violence to remove me, this small thorn in a political party’s provincial and ultimately, national ambitions,” she said before a huge crowd that included Sen. Francis Tolentino and former presidential spokesperson Harry Roque.
Six years ago since her unceremonious exit, Garcia said Cebu is “still suffering from the consequences of that power grab.”
The governor lamented that the province “plunged into a precipitous drop reaching our lowest at No. 45, in a field of 81 provinces.”
From being debt-free during her administration, Garcia said Cebu is now burdened with P1.5-billion debt. (Calvin Cordova)