Council reclassified Lumbia land in 2012

By NITZ ARANCON
Correspondent

AN ordinance passed by the city council in 2012 reclassified the Gador family’s over 10-hectare property in Pahiron, Lumbia from agricultural to residential.

City hall revealed this yesterday as Mayor Oscar Moreno lashed out at Councilor Leon Gan and other councilors who sought the repeal of a city ordinance that authorized the local chief executive to buy the Lumbia property for over 700 families displaced by the Typhoon Sendong devastation in 2011.

The government plans to build 722 houses for Sendong survivors on the Lumbia property owned by the heirs of Rizal Gador. Japan promised to send the construction materials on the condition that the government would provide the relocation area.

Councilors Gan, Nadya Elipe and Lordan Suan however withdrew their vote for City Ordinance 2016-1, authored by Councilor Edna Dahino, that authorized Moreno to make a deal with the Gadors. It also set aside P27.5 million to buy the property.

On Monday, Gan alleged that the Gador property was overpriced, and that the property’s value was only P110 per square meter because it is supposedly classified as agricultural.

At a news conference yesterday, Moreno provided reporters copies of City Ordinance 12434-2012 showing that the city council reclassified the Lumbia property from agricultural to residential on Sept. 25, 2012.

The reclassification, based on the 2012 ordinance, is meant to provide a “relocation site of the victims of Typhoon Sendong.”

The ordinance was approved barely a year after the worst environmental tragedy to ever hit the city so far in recent years and just a few months before the then mayor Vicente Emano ended his 15-year political leadership in the city.

Those who voted for the 2012 ordinance were the then councilors Simeon Licayan, Adrian Barba, Alvin Calingin, Ramon Tabor, Alexander Dacer, Juan Sia, Dante Pajo, Alden Bacal, Jose Pepe Abbu, President Elipe, Emmanuel Abejuela, Sunshine Mae Obsioma, and now city council majority floor Councilor Ian Mark Nacaya.

“Liars… They’re lying… I accuse them of deception, and I accuse them of intension that is not consistent to the public service. I’m sorry that I have to say these things,” said Moreno of Gan and his group.

He said Gan peddled falsehood when he alleged that he found out that the Gador property was an agricultural land, and that there supposedly was an attempt to bloat the land value in order to overprice it.

In withdrawing his vote for the Dahino ordinance, Gan said the Gador property has a value of only P110 per square meter but the Moreno administration would buy it for P265 per square meter.

Moreno said showed another document, showing that the Gadors, through real estate broker Edmund Gumpay, offered to sell the property to city hall for P350 per square meter on Feb. 5, 2014.

He said the property’s appraisal value was P300 per square meter. Following negotiations, Moreno said he talked the Gador family into agreeing to lower the price to P265 per square meter.

Moreno called Gan, Elipe and Suan’s move to withdraw their vote for the Dahino ordinance “unprecedented,” “chaotic,” “ominous” and meant to mislead other councilors.

He said the 2012 ordinance also showed that city hall saw the Gador family’s property as suitable for relocation even before he assumed as mayor of the city.

“I suspect here nga na-a silay plano… to abort the deal and offer the property to somebody else,” Moreno said.

Gan, the legislature’s minority floor leader, tried to convince the city council on Monday to include in its agenda a proposal to repeal the Dahino ordinance. Those who voted in favor of its inclusion were councilors Gan, Elipe, Suan, Yam Lam Lim, Dometilo Acenas Jr., Teodulfo Lao and Enrico Salcedo. They lost in the counting.