BUSINESSMAN Efrain Pelaez and developer Benjamin Ebrada yesterday filed at the Ombudsman-Visayas criminal and administrative charges against Lapu-Lapu City Mayor Arturo Radaza, two ranking city officials, and two city police officials.
The charges were about the officials’ alleged illegal demolition of a causeway that serves as right of way to the property of Pelaez.
Besides Radaza, the other respondents in the Pelaez complaint were city administrator Teodulo Ybañez, city attorney Vincent Joseph Lim, Supt. Louie Oppus and precinct commander Felix Pacaldo of the City Police.
Pelaez and Ebrada asked the Ombudsman to place the respondents under preventive suspension pending the resolution of this latest case, which stemmed from the demolition of the causeway in barangay Agus last October 19.
The complainants said the demolition was arbitrary and illegal due to lack of a court order. Ebrada, who is leasing a lot adjacent to the property of Pelaez, said he was also affected by the alleged illegal demolition.
The city government demolished the causeway, which was allegedly part of the 13,370 square meters lot that Pelaez’ Goldpoint Land Corporation applied for foreshore lease with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.
The complainants said that they were shocked to see an undated notice posted by the respondents on October 9 at the causeway while stating that, based on city records, it has no building permit and that no owner has been identified.
The notice, signed by Lim, also served as notice of demolition within ten days but Pelaez and Ebrada questioned why it was undated, and accused it as a sinister plot to confuse the owner on when will the 10-day period be reckoned with.
The complainants contended that only the respondents knew when was the 10-day period, which after it lapsed, the demolition was done that caused them “irreparable injury and wanton damage.”
Pelaez assailed the claim of “no identified owner” of the causeway was a “malignant ploy of disinformation” by the respondents allegedly to give semblance of legitimacy to their unlawful act.
Pelaez contended that Radaza could not claim ignorance over the ownership of the property because Radaza, as vice mayor then, presided the City Council that approved on April 2, 1996 a resolution interposing no objection to the foreshore lease application of Pelaez’s company.
Pelaez added that, during a conference with the Ombudsman sometime in October, he told the respondents that his company, Goldpoint Land Corporation owned the causeway.
“The manner by which the demolition was undertaken also made more manifest the spiteful tendency of the respondent city officials, aided by respondent Oppus who readily lent aid to carry out this unlawful order,” the complaint reads. — Fred P. Languido/RAE