Pasay city hall deal questioned

Dismissed Pasay City Mayor Wenceslao "Peewee" Trinidad questioned yesterday the awarding of a P600-million contract for the construction of a new city hall to a sole bidder by the city’s new mayor, Allan Panaligan.

Trinidad, who is running for Pasay mayor, said that on Feb. 22, the Court of Appeals (CA) issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) in favor of Vice Mayor Antonino Calixto against the implementation of the Jan. 12 decision of the Office of the Ombudsman.

"The TRO, in effect, returned Calixto to his position as vice mayor. Calixto, through Section 46 (a) of the Local Government Code, should assume the position of mayor," Trinidad’s statement also read.

On Feb. 26, Calixto issued a directive to the bids and awards committee to hold in abeyance any transactions that do not have his approval.

However, in the afternoon of the same day, the committee proceeded with the bids and awarded the multi-million contract to the only bidder – in defiance of the TRO issued by the CA.

"We intend to question this in due time and we will file the appropriate cases with the Ombudsman soon," Trinidad said.

This developed after the Department of Interior and Local Government filed an appeal before the CA to clarify the TRO it issued concerning Calixto’s dismissal. The DILG did not yet honor the TRO.

Instead, the DILG is recognizing Panaligan as Pasay City’s mayor and former councilor Arvin Tolentino as its vice mayor.

Trinidad said Pasay residents will be paying for the 3.2 hectare property along the reclamation area where the new city hall will be built after a government agency handling the land did not allow the offset of payment with real property taxes.

"The realty tax swap of the city government with the Public Estates Authority has been placed under legal cloud," Trinidad said. "The Public Reclamation Authority is inclined not to honor the tax swap because of the earlier decision of the Supreme Court on Amari, which makes the reclamation area tax-free and, therefore, collapses the arrangement."