Suspended Mandaue mayor files COC for reelection 

Suspended Mandaue City mayor Jonas Cortes has filed his Certificate of Candidacy (COC) for reelection on Friday, October 4, 2024. 

According to GMA Regional TV's Balitang Bisdak, Cortes filed his COC at 8 a.m. today with his family.  

The Office of the Ombudsman found Cortes guilty of grave misconduct and ordered him dismissed from service.

The decision on September 26, 2024 is based on a complaint filed on October 17, 2022 by Mandaue City residents Ines Corbo Necesario and Julia Narte on the mayor's act of allowing the continuous operation of SUPREA Philippines Development Corporation, a batching plant of concrete mix cement located at Sitio San Jose 1, Circumferential Road, Barangay Labogon, Mandaue City in 2020 to 2022 despite the lack of the required business permit, sanitary permit, and environment clearance.

Its operation posed alleged health risks and disturbances to residents close to the plant's perimeter, but Cortes refused to issue a cease-and-desist order against the firm and allowed said batching plant to continue operating its business.

"…the regulation and monitoring of the operation of SUPREA involved the very functions that respondent ought to discharge by virtue of his office. He has a duty to act, but he deliberately chose not to act," the decision read.

"Such misconduct is clearly demonstrated when respondent (Cortes) allowed its operation in 2020 until 2022 without business permit and the required sanitary permit and environmental clearance, and refused to immediately act on the recommendations of the MCENRO (Mandaue City Environment and Natural Resources Office) as early as 2020."

In a statement posted on his official social media page, Cortes said that the decision "comes as no surprise," and that he will "exhaust every legal remedy to fight this battle." —Sherylin Untalan/LDF, GMA Integrated News