Mayor, 7 constituent-barangay execs terminated for misconduct in Cotabato

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December 13, 2025 | 6:14pm

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — The Department of the Interior and Local Government-12 enforced on Thursday, December 11, an order from the Ombudsman terminating from office the mayor of Alamada municipality in Cotabato province for grave abuse and misconduct.

The dismissal order was personally handed over to Mayor Jesus Sacdalan, right in his office, by lawyer Rochelle Sero, who is the regional director of DILG 12, their chief legal officer, Jane Toreon, also a practicing lawyer, and their provincial director for Cotabato, Inecita Kionisala.

DILG-12 officials told reporters on Saturday that the discharge order for Sacdalan was released by the Ombudsman last week.

Also dismissed dishonorably from their offices, along with Sacdalan, were seven of his subordinate-barangay chairpersons for their having permitted together, without clearance from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources and the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples, the construction of roads and a 2.83-megawatt hydroelectric power plant in the Libungan River in a protected forestland in the municipality.

Radio reports on Saturday in Cotabato City and in nearby areas in Central Mindanao stated that the area where the hydroelectric power plant was constructed is also a recognized ancestral domain of indigenous communities.

Sacdalan voluntarily affixed his signature to the discharge order for him from the Ombudsman, in the presence of DILG 12 officials and local executives, among them his son, Vice Mayor Victor Sacdalan, who then assumed the local government post that he vacated.

A member of the Sangguniang Bayan in Alamada, Chantuylee Calibara, who garnered the highest number of votes for municipal councilors during the May 12, 2025 elections, was also installed by DILG 12 officials as vice mayor of the municipality.

The Ombudsman’s termination of Sacdalan and the seven barangay officials from their respective offices was premised on a complaint filed against them by Cotabato provincial officials for having allowed the construction of roads and a hydroelectric power generation facility in a protected timberland in Alamada, in total disregard of state environment-protection laws.

Provincial officials were quoted in radio reports on Saturday as saying that the functions and powers of the DENR and the NCIP are not devolved to city, municipal and provincial governments in all regions in the country.

The DILG-12 officials who served Sacdalan the discharge order from the Ombudsman at his office were escorted by officials of the Cotabato Provincial Police Office.