The factory owner who paid his worker's salary in centavos has tested positive for COVID-19 at a time when his company is expected to comply with various business operations violations, Valenzuela City Mayor Rex Gatchalian said Thursday.
Gatchalian questioned the timing of NexGreen Enterprise owner's positive result for COVID-19 by saying, "it seemed coincidental."
For the mayor, he is "getting this feeling" that the owner is only "dilly-dallying" or delaying the process to rectify their violations, which is expected to be completed by July 15.
This came after the factory's business permit was suspended for 15 days starting June 30 when several violations were found inside the company after it paid one of its employees, Russel Mañoza, P1,056 in coins for his 24-hour work.
"Parang ang coincidental naman, habang painit nang painit, sumusulat kami sayo, bilang nagka-abogado sa eksena, biglang nagka-COVID (It seemed coincidental. While the issue gets more intense and we sent him letters, his lawyer comes in and then he gets COVID-19)," Gatchalian said in a TeleRadyo interview. He said the local government already confirmed the owner's swab test result from the laboratory itself, which turned out to be legitimate.
Aside from that, the factory owner's counsel is supposedly refusing to give his client's passport to the local government, citing data privacy laws.
"I found odd. Wala namang laman doon sa passport na di ko alam right now. I had this feeling, mayroon tayong potential...na problema sa papeles nya (There's something in the passport that I still don't know. I had this feeling that he has potential problems in his papers)," Gatchalian said.
The local government also asked for the roster of the factory's present employees, including the cashier who handed over the salary in coins, but its management could not provide it yet.
"Hindi raw nila alam yung apelyido which I found impossible (They said they don't know the cashier's surname, which I found impossible)," Gatchalian added.