Group wants plunder rap vs PEA execs to proceed

MANILA, Philippines – A militant fisherfolk group expressed hope on Friday that the plunder case against Public Estates Authority (PEA) officials and a private developer in connection with the allegedly anomalous sale of reclaimed land along Roxas Boulevard in 1988 will proceed.

“We hope that we, the marginalized fisherfolk, shall be given justice under the Duterte administration,” the Alyansa ng mga Maralitang Mangingisda said.

The fisherfolk group, the United Filipino Consumers and Commuters (UFCC) and the Water For All Refund Movement were among those that filed graft and plunder charges against former and current PEA officials and executives of the Manila Bay Development Corp. (MBDC) before the Office of the Ombudsman in February 2015.

The groups accused the PEA officials and MBDC executives of allegedly conspiring to defraud the government in the sale of a four-hectare reclaimed land in Parañaque in 1988, now valued at more than P41 billion.

Among those charged were PEA chairman Roberto Muldong; general manager Peter Anthony Abaya; board directors Virgilio Ambion, Manuel Medina, Edilberto de Jesus, Reynaldo Robles and Rene Enrique Silos; former general manager Eduardo Zialcita; MBDC president George Chua and the firm’s board of directors.

UFCC lead convenor Rodolfo Javellana Jr. said the complaint arose from MBDC’s alleged failure to develop the land beside the Cavite Expressway nearly three decades after both parties signed an agreement covering its sale and supposed conversion into a Greenhills-type commercial center within five years after the sale.

He said the prescription period for filing charges – 10 years for plunder and 20 for graft – does not apply since Filipinos only became aware of the deed of sale recently, when Uniwide Sales Realty and Resources Corp. came out in 2014 with a newspaper advertisement appealing to PEA to take back the property, which MBDC purchased for only P420 million.

Uniwide has a court case against MBDC.