• GILBERT P. BAYORAN
All’s well that ends well, for top officials of Bacolod and Iloilo cities.
Mayor Alfredo Abelardo Benitez has lauded the decision of Iloilo City Mayor Jerry Treñas to lift his executive order declaring Bacolod City Vice Mayor El Cid Familiaran as “persona non grata” over the Badjao issue.
Let’s move on past this incident, Benitez said on Monday night, in an interview with reporters, after the State Of the City Address of his son, Mayor Javier Miguel Benitez, in Victorias City.
Treñas had criticized Familiaran, then acting mayor of Bacolod City, for supposedly sending a group of Badjaos to Iloilo, without coordination.
Benitez, who was on an official trip abroad at that time, had already apologized to Treñas.
While he accepted the apology of Benitez, Treñas still sent back 77 Badjaos to Bacolod, en route to their trip back to Zamboanga City, via Dumaguete City, Negros Oriental, last week.
“Thank you Mayor Treñas. All’s well ends well. Let’s move on past this incident. It’s incumbent upon us to work together,” Benitez said.
“Technically, there were lapses done that were not the vice mayor’s doing,” he explained.*
