A FUMING Dagupan Mayor Alipio Fernandez has ordered City Legal Officer George Mejia prepare the filing of charges against two women from Bonuan Gueset who padlocked the Gregorio del Pilar Elementary School, holding hostage 1,086 pupils and 30 teachers for two hours last Tuesday morning.

Fernandez rushed to the school after Vice Mayor Belen Fernandez notified him about the commotion in front of the school, seeing students climbing up the fences to get out of school ground because the campus gate was padlocked.

Sisters Aida Paras Generao and her sister, Rosie Paras Ventinilla, claiming to own the lot on which the school stands, allegedly installed the padlock on the gate.

The mayors said neither the city hall, the city school division, nor the principal of the Gregorio del Pilar Elementary School received any court order conveying the lot to the siblings.

The mayor, who hurriedly rushed to the school, himself destroyed the padlock with a hammer.

“I removed the padlock so that the people can go out, and if Ms.Generao and Ms. Ventinilla want to file a case, then they should file it against me first,” said Fernandez, adding that he assumes full responsibility for his action.

Stressing that he would not tolerate a repeat of the incident, under his watch, Fernandez said he and the city school division will initiate a case of illegal detention against the siblings for detaining school children and teachers against their will for more than two hours.

He added that if Generao and Ventinilla, indeed, hold documents attesting to their claim to the school lot, she and her other siblings should file a case in court and not arbitrarily claim it by padlocking the school.

“Assuming that they have the documents, then they should go to the proper forum and not keep the pupils hostage,” the mayor said.

The mayor, however, doubts the land claim of Generalo and Ventinilla because the General Gregorio del Pilar School, named after the hero of Tirad Pass, has been in existent since the early l950s.

He pointed out that the lot on which the Gregorio Elementary School is deemed a national government asset, but Fernandez said the city as well as the local school board has a moral responsibility over it

Vice Mayor Fernandez said the Sangguniang Panlungsod, which she chairs, supports the action of the mayor.

Meanwhile, City Schools Superintendent Alma Ruby Torio called on Bonuan Gueset Barangay Chairman Angelito Gumarang to ensure that the incident would not be repeated.

Gumarang told newsmen that Generao and Ventinilla, who own several stores outside the school campus, padlocked the school gate ostensibly in retaliation to the teachers’ order prohibiting students from going out of the campus during their recess time.

The barangay official questioned the motive of the sisters in asserting their claim today when the General Gregorio del Pilar School is already more than 50 years old.

“They could have presented their claim some 50 years ago when this school was still being constructed,” Gumarang said.—LM

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