Suspension of P’sinan mayor sought

A group of residents of San Carlos City in Pangasinan is asking the Office of the Ombudsman to place their mayor under preventive suspension following the graft complaint they filed against him for the alleged illegal demolition of a public school and their houses to make way for the construction of a shopping mall.

In a four-page complaint affidavit they filed last Feb. 6, nine city residents — Aniceta Fernandez, Marina Doria, Adolfo Doria, Roberto Doria, Marilyn Tamondong, Virginia Salta, Magdalena Doria, Armando Doria, and Juliana Doria — accused Mayor Julian Resuello of allegedly taking advantage of his position to illegally evict them from their houses in 2001.

They said Resuello informed them that he wanted the area cleared for the construction of a public playground and a public museum.

Resuello subsequently ordered the city’s engineering office to demolish the complainants’ houses as well as the adjoining San Carlos Central 11 Elementary School.

But they claimed that Resuello’s real intention was to lease the property to a private investor for commercial purposes.

In 2005, they said Resuello entered into a contract with CSI, a private company, for the construction of a mall on the property.

According to the complainants, their houses were demolished after Armando Doria received P265,000 from Resuello as supposed compensation for the entire 216-square-meter residential property along the Cava Creek.

In their affidavit, they said Resuello personally approached Doria and Tamondong and proposed that they vacate the property in exchange for a certain amount or face ejectment without compensation.

They said they then filed a petition for an injunction with the San Carlos City regional trial court, but it was dismissed.

The Court of Appeals also dismissed their petition due to a technicality, they said.

In their complaint with the Office of the Ombudsman, they said the property, classified as public land, was declared by the late former President Ferdinand Marcos an "alienable land."

They said their parents applied for a sales patent with the Bureau of Lands’ office in La Union, which approved it in 1956.