VICE Mayor Alvin Fernandez has vehemently denied the alleged plan of the city government to turn over the administration of the Tondaligan Park to the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR).

Vice Mayor Alvin Fernandez reads aloud
his letter to The Punch before newsmen.

“That’s an absolute lie! I never told him that, he is a liar!,” the fuming Fernandez said in a privilege speech last Monday, in obvious reference to an item of columnist Gonzalo Duque in The PUNCH’s November 19 issue.

Duque quoted Fernandez as saying that the city would turn over the Tondaligan Park to DENR as a solution to the supposed grand robbery in the area.

Fernandez clarified that he never called up the columnist, also president of Lyceum-Northwestern University, about the matter. Fernandez added that it was City Administrator Rafael Baraan whom Duque actually phoned about the issue.

Nonetheless, Fernandez admitted that he had a conversation with Duque about the park on November 14, Tuesday, but not over the weekend as Duque claimed.

Fernandez said that in that conversation, he told Duque that the city has already investigated the case and he denied that there was a grand robbery and rampant selling and exchanging of lands in the area.

“What I explained to him was that the city has applied for miscellaneous lease agreement (MLA) with DENR for the accreted land so that the city can have legal rights and be the legal possessor of the property,” Fernandez clarified.

Fernandez said Baraan could attest that he never mentioned the alleged transfer of Tondaligan Park administration to DENR in his conversation with Duque.

“The administrator was with me at that time when I was talking to Duque,” he added.

In his column, Duque wrote that billions of pesos have changed hands as a result of the rampant selling of this government property to private entities and maintained that an accountant is willing to stake his reputation to show that his “estimate is within the ambit of computability.”

Fernandez countered that there was no such land selling or “grand robbery” in the Tondaligan Park and most of the structures there are government offices and civic organizations and the rest of the structures are sheds fronting the beach.

“Mr. Duque, can you give me one corporation, one entity who is willing to gamble his billions of pesos in exchange for the popular Tondaligan Park,” Fernandez challenged.

An Exaggeration?

Fernandez accused Duque of exaggerating his story but acknowledged that assuming there is illegal selling of lands in the area, it may only be worth millions of pesos, not billions.

Fernandez clarified that that the possible land grabbing may not have occurred at Tondaligan Park but in the 31-hectare accreted land in Bonuan Binloc. “I wondered where and how Duque got his information,” he said.

Fernandez said he has no plans to file a libel suit against Duque since he believes that “Duque is good at making stories in his column.”

The SP has asked Duque to explain in writing his claims regarding the grand robbery in Tondaligan Park to help the city council make an intelligent legislative inquiry on the issue.

The city council also invited representatives of the DENR as well as the Community Environment and Natural Resources Office to attend in next plenary session of the city council to clarify the issue.

Duque remains cool

Meanwhile, Duque merely laughed off Fernandez’ reaction to his column item, saying he will only honor the invitation of the city council if the vice mayor furnishes him a copy of the investigation report regarding the Tondaligan Park issue as he earlier requested.

He said he has a source, a former administrator of Tondaligan Park, who has several documents in his possession attesting to the massive selling of lands on still part of the Tondaligan Park, including the 31-hectare accreted land mentioned by Fernandez.

He said his expose’ was actually a follow up to the many related reports made previously by The PUNCH indicating that a surveyor from Baguio City went to the extent of parceling the shoreline by lots and each parcel being sold to different persons.

“Instead of fuming mad over my column item, what the vice mayor and his colleagues should have done and must do is to conduct an investigation on the matter to protect the interest of the city,” Duque said.

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