BACOLOD City – City Legal Officer Joselito Bayatan said he is prepared should there be illegal detention charges filed against him.
“I do not fear anything,” Bayatan, a lawyer, stressed.
Perfecto Señeres and Mark Anthony Diaz – the men who Bayatan accused of distributing libelous letters at the Bacolod City Government Center earlier this month – said they plan to file illegal detention or arbitrary detention charges against the city legal officer.
Señeres and Diaz announced this in a press conference they called for yesterday after they were released from the lockup cell of Police Station 4.
Señeres and Diaz are the city government’s suppliers of construction materials during the term of former mayor Monico Puentevella in 2015.
They went to the city hall on Sept. 5 to demand the city government to pay them their dues worth P3.7 million.
That same day, Señeres and Diaz distributed at city hall copies of their letter to President Rodrigo Duterte, accusing Mayor Evelio Leonardia’s administration of “graft and corruption to the highest order.”
They got arrested and were detained. Bayatan lodged a libel complaint against them at the City Prosecutor’s Office.
Señeres and Diaz got out of jail after the City Prosecutor’s Office on Sept. 11 dismissed Bayatan’s complaint for lack of probable cause.
Bayatan said he already filed his motion for reconsideration.
He added that would welcome the any complaint that Señeres and Diaz would file against him, adding that it will only give him an “elbow room” to give more “clarificatory facts.”
“Whatever they throw me is very much welcome because everything was done in order and was legal,” the city legal officer stressed.
Earlier, Bayatan said Señeres and Diaz’s transaction with the city government during Puentevella’s term was conducted during the election period, which makes it a violation of the Government Procurement Reform Act.
He added that such transaction was among those done through irregular bidding./PN
