An official of the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) has insisted it already served and enforced the preventive six-month suspension order on Quezon City Councilor Roderick Paulate despite refusal of his staff to receive the copy.
Nevertheless, DILG-QC director Juan Juvian Ingeniero said the case was different from Paulate’s colleague, Councilor Francisco Calalay Jr., whose staff accepted the copy of the order without any resistance when he handed it to his (Calalay) office on July 25.
That was the same time when he served the order on Paulate, who is also a movie and television personality, through his staff but the latter refused to receive it, Ingeniero told members of the Quezon City Press Club.
He recalled that Paulate’s employees even blocked them when he and his staff posted the order on the door of the local lawmaker’s office at the legislative building.
Just the same, the DILG-QC official insisted that he already served and enforced the preventive suspension order which he also posted on the bulletin board of the city council.
Ingeniero said he submitted a compliance report to Vice Mayor Joy Belmonte, DILG Undersecretary Austere Panadero, DILG-National Capital Region director Renato Brion, Resident Ombudsman Ronaldo Doctor and Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales that he had already served the order without pay on Paulate and Calalay.
DILG Secretary Jesse Robredo and Jesus Duque of the agency’s legal services division  had also been formally informed that he had already served the order, according to Ingeniero.
“DILG has already done its job,” he said.
He added Mayor Herbert “Bistek” Bautista’s chief of staff Aldrin Cuña, Belmonte and one “Attorney Alferez” of the city secretariat had been also informed about the suspension order.
Ingeniero took the opportunity to belie allegations of Paulate’s staff that he was arrogant and sarcastic when he served the order that came from the Office of the Ombudsman which found sufficient evidence to  indict the two Sangguniang Panlunsod members for allegedly keeping “ghost” employees at their offices.
“Why should I be arrogant? I was then very courteous,” he said as he appealed to the two suspended councilors not “to shoot the messenger but shoot the message.”
He then advised Paulate and Calalay that they can file a petition for a temporary restraining order (TRO) to stop the six-month preventive suspension which he believed the two councilors had already done at this time.
“Then if there is a TRO, please give me a copy so I can immediately tell Secretary Robredo about it,” he said.
The Tribune was told that the DILG will check with the concerned departments at the city hall whether or not Paulate and Calalay continue to receive their wages.