Laguna town officials in hot water

A village chairperson filed charges against San Pedro City, Laguna Mayor Art Joseph Mercado, Vice Mayor Divina Olivarez, 11 councilors and other city officials for alleged abuse of authority, grave abuse of authority, oppression, and violation of the anti-graft and corrupt practices act.

The charges were filed by Barangay Langgam chief Samuel Rivera at the Office of Ombudsman in Quezon City last Monday which allegedly stemmed from his “unreasonable” preventive suspension before the scheduled election of the Liga ng mga Barangay last week.

“We filed cases against Mayor Mercado and others for grave abuse of authority after they slapped us with their questionable preventive suspension signed by his city administrator without due cause,” Rivera said. “It’s very oppressive and unconstitutional that’s why we filed these cases to the Ombudsman.”

“The requisites to implement preventive suspension on these kinds of cases were not present for it to be carried out,” he added.

Meantime, Atty. Melvin Matibag said that the abuse of authority and oppression have no place in the City of San Pedro, denouncing as well as the injustice that happened to the three barangay chairmen.

However, he is calling for a calm and peaceful means of solving the issue and support those affected.

The preventive suspension, he added, has something to do with the Liga ng mga Barangay election supposedly set on 5 July but was postponed by Liga ng mga Barangay sa Pilipinas on 4 July Rivera's suspension.

Rivera was not the only barangay chairman slapped with preventive suspension as also Barangay San Antonio chairperson Eugenio S. Ynion Jr. and Barangay Chrysanthemum chairperson Restituto Hernandez.

“They immediately suspended us inappropriately to rush things because they don’t want us to vote in the Liga ng mga Barangay here in San Pedro where we have the numbers,” Rivera said.