Resort blamed for Parañaque floods closed

A resort in Parañaque City has been served a closure order by the city government for allegedly operating without a mayor’s permit.

Shuttered was the Wing-An Garden Resort of engineer Selwyn Lao located inside Multinational Village. The resort had been blamed by residents of four subdivisions in the city for the incessant flooding in the area.

However, Lao had insisted that the flooding should be blamed on the real estate company of former Senate President Manny Villar for allegedly reclaiming a creek.

Business Permits and Licensing Office chief Atty. Melanie Soriano-Malaya issued the closure order dated 23 January 2024.

Sought for comment, Lao said he has applied for a business permit several times, but that those applications had been rejected repeatedly.

“We will comply, but they really don’t want to approve it. Every time they questioned us, we applied for a permit but they denied it,” Lao told this reporter in a phone interview.

The denial was allegedly for violating a zoning ordinance, Lao said, adding he was just being harassed for speaking out about the alleged illegal titling of the creek by the real estate firm.

“This is really harassment. In my meeting with the DENR (Department of Environment and Natural Resources), they have pressured me to accept their offer of reconciliation to allow them to clean the creek but their purpose is status quo. We agreed to solve this decades-old problem once and for all, then why do they want the status quo?” he asked.