Magdalos join plunder complaint vs Negros mayor

MANILA, Philippines - Former soldiers belonging to the so-called Magdalo group, who are now in a crusade to fight graft and corruption on the local level, yesterday joined a concerned citizen in filing a P480-million plunder case against a mayor of Negros Occidental and other members of his political clan.

Former lieutenants Filmore Rull and Ashley Acedillo, with the support of Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV who led the July 2003 Oakwood mutiny and the November 2007 Manila Peninsula siege, filed, along with Rodolfo Divinagracia, a 35-page criminal complaint against Sipalay City Mayor Oscar Chua Montilla Jr., accusing the local chief executive of stealing from city coffers for 23 years.

Also named respondents were former mayor Soledad Chua Montilla, incumbent Vice Mayor Gina Chua Montilla Lizares, and the mayor’s wife, Juana Jamora Montilla, and 21 other city officials and private individuals.

Divinagracia, a member of the Samahang Magdalo Inc. composed of over 200 former soldiers and 115,000 civilian volunteers, said the Montillas, from 1987 to 2010, “systematically pillaged and plundered the treasury of Sipalay City through a never-ending series of kickbacks in infrastructure projects, rigged bidding or no bidding at all, questionable loans and wasteful use of the city’s Internal Revenue Allotments and other income.”

Divinagracia said Mayor Montilla’s alleged unexplained assets include a three-story building functioning as a hotel, with grocery store, restaurant, hardware and electrical supply store, swimming pool, and money exchange center.

He also alleged that the Montillas also own a resort, an ice plant, a residence at Ayala North in Talisay City covering a whole block of the high-end subdivision, two condominium units at Megaworld Tower in Taguig City, construction firms, a mansion in Barangay Gil Montilla in Sipalay City, and other real estate properties.