Magpale denies allegations she'll gain from landfill deal

Provincial Board member Agnes Magpale yesterday denied allegations that she will be making money from transporting garbage should the proposed sanitary landfill at barangay Maslog in Danao City materialized.

A certain Leopoldo Hernaiz earlier distributed an open letter accusing Magpale of financial interests in the proposed landfill through a trucking company that cornered an exclusive contract to dump garbage from Mandaue and Lapu-Lapu cities to the Maslog site.

Maslog officials however disavowed Hernaiz claim that he has been a resident of the barangay, while the PB believed that the allegations against Magpale were all lies.

"Tanan nga pasangil pulos bakak kay bisan gani ang akong ngalan sayop man, nahimo man nga Magpali," said Magpale as she suspected that the letter-writer could have acted in connection to the rape case filed against Fr. Joey Belcina, parish priest of Maslog.

Magpale hoped that this "Hernaiz" realized that the case, now pending at the Danao City prosecutor's office, not only affected the priest but also the victim so it would be better for everybody to wait for the results of the investigation of the case first.

A Capitol official described the Hernaiz letter as a means to put political underpinnings over the rape case, as Magpale has been an advocate for women's rights in the province.

Magpale, whose family owns the school where the rape victim was studying, reiterated that she came into the case because it was referred to her office.

She also defended Danao City Mayor Ramon "Nito" Durano III who was earlier implicated in the controversy with insinuations that the filling of the rape case against Belcina was politically motivated because the priest opposed the government's plan of setting up a landfill in Maslog.

Mayor Durano, for his part, had strongly denied his involvement in the filling of the rape charges against Belcina saying that Maslog residents will be better off to wait first for the outcome of the case at the prosecutor's office than weaving accusations of politics.

Belcina has strongly denied raping the first-year college student allegedly three times, on July 22 and December 25 last year, and last January 28.

The priest, through his lawyer Gloria Dalawampu, asked the prosecutor's office to extend the period within which he could file his counter-affidavit of the charges. - Jose P. Sollano