Navotas mayor blames squatters for demolition mess

Navotas City Mayor Tobias Tiangco blasted relocated squatter families returning to previously cleared areas on C-3 Road for their hardheadedness and blamed them for the problems besetting them in the current demolition work to pave the way for the construction of the Camanava Mega Dike Flood Control Project.

According to Tiangco, the DPWH is merely re-clearing a previously cleared area where the dike for the P3.5-billion Camanava Mega Dike Flood Control Project will be built.

He said the area, a stretch of riverbank along C-3 Road, was initially cleared of squatters in 1998. All the families were trucked to relocation sites in Bitongol and Norzagaray (Pabahay 2000), both in Bulacan.

He also blamed North Bay Boulevard South (NBBS) barangay chairman Carolina Villota for the return of already relocated squatter families and the proliferation of new ones in the previously cleared area.

Villota, incidentally, is the subject of a six-month suspension order issued by the Office of the Ombudsman last June 15 but has not been enforced by Tiangco for still unknown reasons. Villota was charged and found guilty by the town council of charges of passing off her current partner as her legal husband. – Jerry Botial