DOJ indicts LGU officials, employees for resort’s forcible take-over

CABUGAO, ILOCOS SUR – The justice department thumbed up charging Cabugao, Ilocos Sur Mayor Josh Edward Cobangbang, 15
other officials and employees with serious illegal detention and grave coercion for forcibly “taking-over” a resort more than a year ago here.
Reversing an earlier panel of government prosecutors’ ruling that dismissed the charges against the officials and employees, DOJ
Undersecretary Deo Marco favored resort manager Virginia
Nicole Savellano-Ong’s complaint where she, her four year old son and several resort employees were “detained” and “bullied” when the local government-owned Cabugao Beach Resort (CBR) was
padlocked upon Mayor Cobangbang’s orders.
USec. Marco ruled that all the elements of illegal detention case were present when Cabugao employees, who were ordered by Cobangbang, headed to shut down the resort even without any
court order or order from a competent authority, padlocked some rooms, closed the resort gates and stationed several believed-to-be armed men on August 23, 2017.
The DOJ official also decided that an earlier ruling by an Ilocos Sur Special Prosecutor finding probable cause for illegal detentions and grave coercion versus Mayor Cobangbang, town officials and employees stays as he found all the elements of these cases existed in the incident.
Usec Marco, thus, on January 15,2019 ordered Ilocos Sur provincial prosecutors to indict Cobangbang, other town officials and employees for serious illegal detention and grave coercion
and likewise ordered them to report to the Justice department their action on the matter.
 
ACE ALEGRE

Amianan Balita Ngayon