Tarlac mayor OKs 200% rental hike of aide’s property

TARLAC CITY — City Mayor Genaro Mendoza has endorsed a 200-percent increase in the city government’s rental on a property owned by his legal adviser, which is being used as a dumpsite.

In a letter to Vice Mayor Miguel Tañedo, Mendoza asked the city council to accede to demands that the city hall’s rental payment on the 12-hectare lot owned by his lawyer, Blesilo Buan, be increased from P75,000 to P250,000 a month.

Buan, the acting city legal officer, owns the property in Barangay San Luis here, which is being used as a dumping site for collected garbage for more than 20 years now.

It was only in October 1999 when the city hall has entered into a contract with Buan to rent the dumping site at P75,000 a month. When the contract expired last May 31, the lawyer gave his superior, Mendoza, only until last Sept. 30 for the city to use the dumpsite if the mayor does not accept his offer of increasing the rental.

In justifying his demand, Buan told Mendoza in a letter signed by the lawyer’s representative, a certain Francisco Sumat, "that a rural health worker is assigned at the dumpsite to maintain the safety and sanitation of the environment and also to protect the physical health of the tenants, as well as to determine whatever health problems they may acquire."

But it was learned that the health worker assigned to the area is employed with the government’s city health office.

According to some city councilors, the moves of Mendoza and Buan regarding the dumpsite could be in violation of the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act, as the lawyer has a pecuniary interest with the government while serving as the acting city legal officer.