Abused of power by the Villars in Boracay?

By Mortz C. Ortigoza

The brouhahas on the tearing of the mountain at Barangay Yapak in the 1,032 hectares’ Boracay Island would surely affect the standing of re-elective Senator Cynthia Villar at the next polls of Social Weather Station and Pulse Asia if her detractors could play their cards well.

She and Senator Grace Poe hogged the No. 2 and No. 1, respectively, spots in the latest commissioned SWS’s poll conducted from April 7 to 11.

Rowen Aguirre, Executive Assistant on Boracay Affairs of Malay municipality, told CNN Philippines recently, that the Villar’s family owned Costa Vista lacks some necessary permits for the construction thus the local government had ordered it to stop the work on the project.

VILLARS - (L to R) Department of Public Works & Highway Secretary Mark Villar, Former Senate President Manny Villar, and Senator Cynthia Villar. The Villar Family owned the multi-billion peso home builder Vista Land whose  Costa Vista conglomerate member is constructing a P6.6 billion's  six residential towers, private villas, hotel, a pavilion with viewing deck, pool, convention center and a commercial quarter in Boracay Island, Aklan.

But residents there including the one who took the video that went viral in social media said the humming of construction activities there remain unabated.

They criticized the excavation despite the closure of the island for environmental rehabilitation. They cited the site is near a natural habitat for endangered fruit bats.

The continued activities of Costa Vista despite President Rodrigo Duterte’s suspension order of construction there would be perceived as grave abuse of power on the part of the Senator and her son Mark Villar who is the secretary of the Department of Public Works & Highway.

The solon said the family owned business has the legal documents and title to do the build up.  

Senator Villar is the chair of the Senate Committee on Environment and Natural Resources while DPWH Secretary Villar is part of the Boracay Task Force.

The Villar Family is into the leading home builder in the country’s Vista Land.

It is spending P2.2 billion for the 6.5-hectare endeavour. It is spending another P4.4 billion to add 15 more hectares to the project.

Costa Vista Boracay was described as a project that will include six residential towers, private villas, hotel, a pavilion with viewing deck, pool, convention center and a commercial quarter.

The Villars also owned the Boracay Sands Hotel there.

An ABS-CBN report cited that a “road network going to Costa Vista Boracay is currently being built.” It noted that the road “covers parts of the mountain.

When President Duterte mulled the six month closure of the world renowned island to start in April 26, the opposition of Senator Villar was acrimonious.

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Son of a gun, I remembered the infamous quote in Spanish of Liberal Party's stalwart and Senate President Jose Avelino when he told Saluyot President Elpidio Quirino  at a Malacanang meeting in January 15, 1949 ”What we in power for?!”

This poser ensued on his exhortation to the Ilocano president to tolerate corruptions committed in the government by their LP allies.

"Why did you have to order an investigation Honorable Mr. President? If you cannot permit abuses, you must at least tolerate them. What are we in power for? We are not hypocrites. Why should we pretend to be saints when in reality we are not? We are not angels. When we die we will all go to hell. It is better to be in hell because in that place there are no investigations, no secretary of justice, no secretary of the interior to go after us,"  cited by the Visayan (Samar) Senate President.
Holy Molly, those verbal somersault were sheer hubris and abused of power!

Thanks God our present president did not come from Ilocosvakia like the corrupt Ferdinand Marcos who nearly fed us to the dogs in the 1980s. Thanks Jesus he came from Davao City and a no non-nonsense Dirty Harry Duterte.

That gaffe was vehemently denied by the Quirinos and historian Quintin Doroquez who blamed Manila Chronicle reporter Celso Cabrera who zealously wrote the incident from Spanish to English.

I hope the Villars would not blame me on this article for citing them.

Gee whiz, I only read my info from various dailies.

I used to cover the lady solon when she first ran for the Senate in 2013. Her media aide the pretty Mavic Chavez would sometimes sneak me in for a one on one interview with her and we sometimes reached pre-dawn when she (The Madam) graced the coronation night of some fiestas at the towns in Pangasinan.

Patent grave abuse of authority, the Villars and us Filipinos should remember, caused the downful and disgraced of former Department of Tourism Secretary Wanda Tulfo-Teu and the forthcoming probable plunder or graft cases to be filled by the Ombudsman to her, brass of government owned PTV-4 brass probably lead by Presidential Communications Operations Office Secretary Martin Andanar, and Teu’ brother broadcaster and PTV-4 block timer Ben Tulfo, head of Bitag Media Unlimited, Inc, who got the lion’s share of the P60 million advertisement contract in a meeting of minds grossly disadvantageous to the government.

Why? Salamabit since Bitag my dear Watson caters to the C,D, and E classes Filipinos who love to hear expletives, arrogance, and machismo and not foreigners who should be the audience target of the P60 million so they would come to tourist spots of this country and spend their dollars and give jobs to our people.

(You can read my selected columns at mortzortigoza.blogspot.com and articles at Pangasinan News Aro. You can send comments too at totomortz@yahoo.com)