Suspended Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama claimed over the weekend that politics was behind his preventive suspension, lamenting that his image was destroyed up to Malacañang.

Rama said he would be committing “mental dishonesty” if he would say that his preventive suspensions — three in all — were not politically motivated.

“I am not a quarrelsome person, especially not with women. I have already filed charges, so why would I instigate further conflict?” Rama asked.

“My only request is for the wheels of justice to turn swiftly because the impact of the suspension strikes like lightning. Why am I being targeted when I’m not even the payroll maker?”

Rama’s third suspension for six months, along with those of seven other city hall officials, was ordered by the Office of the Ombudsman over his administration’s failure to pay the salaries of several government employees for months.

The embattled mayor is set to contest the preventive suspension before the Supreme Court.

Rama recounted his failed attempts to meet with the President from 6 to 8 May. He said Vice Mayor Raymond Alvin Garcia confirmed receiving a memorandum from the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) to take over the mayor’s post.

Garcia received a call from DILG on Friday, telling him to take command, Rama recounted.

Former Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña, for his part, urged Rama, as president of the League of Cities in the Philippines (LCP), to resign.

“Rama should resign as president of the City Mayors’ League, as he is an embarrassment to every city mayor in the Philippines that he is their ‘model’ city mayor,” Osmeña said.

“Here in Cebu City, we have already gotten used to being embarrassed, as this is his third suspension. No Cebu City mayor has ever been suspended, so Rama beats all the previous city mayors three versus zero,” the former mayor added.

Osmeña said a fourth suspension order is forthcoming against Rama for allegedly destroying government property, that of the Cebu Port Authority.

Rama’s first suspension was for releasing calamity pay to city hall officials and employees who were victims of super typhoon “Yolanda,” Osmeña recalled.

The second suspension was for “demolishing” the infrastructure project of Barangay Labangon, Osmeña added.