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CAGAYAN DE ORO FOLK SUPPORT BELEAGUERED COP CHIEF

Cagayan de Oro City, Feb. 25, 2000 - Thousands of Cagayan de Oro residents yesterday rallied behind a police chief charged with corruption and coddling local gambling lords.

Some 3,000 residents trooped to Camp Alagar, headquarters of the Philippine National Police in Northern Mindanao, to pressure its officials not to slap city police director Supt. Cesar Ouano Jr. with a preventive suspension order.

Ouano’s former aide, Benjamin Rada, administratively charged him with coddling gambling lords, extortion,and other irregularities. Rada also accused Ouano of using his influence to stop law enforcers from serving a string of arrest warrants against Mrs. Ouano.

Ouano denied all of Rada’s accusations, which he described as “baseless and fabricated.”

An effigy of SPO4 Rada was torched by the barangay chairpersons who were convinced the filing of the administrative case was part of a “grand plan” to have Ouano ousted and replaced.

But Rada has repeatedly denied that he fabricated the charges.

“I decided to come forward against a superior because I’m being bothered by my conscience and this is what I got,” said Rada. “Why can’t a colonel be suspended when the PNP has no problems suspending patrolmen who are facing similar charges?”

The Cagayan de Oro City council ruled that the accusation that Ouano solicited funds from local gambling lords has “no factual basis.”

Most of the city councilors and the barangay chairpersons who spearheaded yesterday’s pro-Ouano rally are closely identified with Mayor Vicente Emano who has openly defended the embattled local police chief.

“Ouano is an innocent man,” Emano said, adding that Ouano was a victim of internal politics among ranking police officials in Northern Mindanao.