Rumors have been circulating that I was the one who ordered the fencing of Bayambang Central School. As you may recall, hundreds of workers accompanied by armed policemen fenced off the school grounds on August 19. The GI sheets were then spray-painted with a ‘No Trespassing’ sign and guarded by armed security. I categorically deny that I was the one behind such move. I have absolutely nothing to do with the fencing.

What I plan to do is to keep the valuable and historic Bayambang school grounds, my own alma mater together with thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of fellow Bayambangueños, and return the school to its rightful owner, the municipality and its public school students, and then rebuild it from the ashes of destruction. The least I wanted to do to the present school grounds in its current state is to TEMPORARILY put up a parking space for tricycle drivers to help ease the current traffic situation downtown – that’s all.

I will do everything within my power to fight this battle in court.

Allow me to recall to you the turn of events in this shady deal that led to the transfer of the school to its present site in Bical Sur (near Magsaysay).

• Sometime in August 2013, under the administration of former mayor Ricardo Camacho and with the help of the municipal lawyer, Atty. Geraldine Baniqued, the 1 hectare old campus – a prime real estate property which is conservatively worth 465 Million Pesos – was ‘swapped’ with a 2.2 hectare property worth 16 Million Pesos with a 60-classroom building valued at around 62 Million Pesos, which together are worth a total of around 76 Million Pesos only. The latter is owned by one Willy Chua, supposedly for Super Concrete Aggregates. As you can see, the deal is heavily lopsided, in favor of Chua.
• The purported reasons given behind the transfer of the school are: the cases of dengue at the time and the perennial flooding in the area during the rainy season.
• The 3.1 hectare campus was abandoned when the court ordered the school officials to transfer to the new campus. The school transferred there October 2013. (An aside: The main building of the school, as we all know, burned down at dawn in July 6, 2012. And it is illegal to alter or tear down the 100-year-old Gabaldon-type of structure because, under the Heritage Act, all structures 50 years and older are presumed to be historic.)
• Bayambang Central School PTA President Filipinas Alcantara led the lodging of complaint against Camacho and Chua with the Office of the Ombudsman.
• The complaint was dismissed by the Ombudsman because the other camp claimed that no contract between them had been signed.
• However, on August 15, 2016 – to everyone’s surprise – there was an order of the local regional court (in San Carlos City) for a Writ of Execution, meaning the LGU must give up Central School and hand it over to Chua.
• Then we found out that earlier, in May 27, 2016, Chua filed a Writ for Specific Performance, asking the LGU the exact same thing.
• Moreover, we discovered that there was, in fact, a signed contract between Chua and Camacho dated August 13, 2013.
• Note that the signed contract for the land swap did not go through the acceptable public bidding process and approval by the Sangguniang Bayan. We even discovered at least three fraudulent signatures. Moreover, the timing between the purported Sanggunian approval and signing of contract raises a lot of suspicion. In other words, the whole thing was done in bad faith. Ex-mayor Camacho lied to the people of Bayambang!
• Furthermore, and this is very sad, the town lost to Chua and company because Bayambang’s own lawyer, Atty. Geraldine Baniqued, surrendered the ball to the other side. She did not even inform me of the legal developments on the case, such that the window of opportunity for the municipality under my administration to make a legal response had lapsed. The result is that we would wake up one day to this totally unpleasant surprise just when we were about to get more hopeful for an eventual takeover.
• Immediately I wrote Atty. Baniqued a complaint and demanded to know why she should not be disbarred for her negligence.
• Willy Chua, in fact, sought an audience with me on August 24, I met with him together with some local officials. I ended up scolding him, telling him to wait for my administration’s response in court.

The foregoing is a rough sketch of the turn of events behind our Petition for Relief from Judgment filed at the Regional Trial Court in San Carlos City on August 30, 2016 (the deadline). The purpose is to annul the decision of the court on Chua’s own petition for the municipality to hand over a most valuable public property to him.

I hope this clarifies the issue once and for all and end all the malicious innuendoes circulating in town.