CEBU CITY -- The municipal government of Badian is seeking the intervention of the Capitol in its bid to resolve the issue involving the structures that were allegedly built illegally in the town’s shoreline.
Engr. Vicente Jojie Nillas, head of Badian’s Office of the Building Official (OBO), said they would seek the advice of Atty. Marino Martinquilla, the province’s consultant on legal matters, after the subject of a cease and desist order (CDO) denied owning the illegally built structures.
Badian Mayor Carmencita Lumain on August 19 issued a CDO ordering Benjamin Martilino Chan to stop the construction of beach houses on Lot No. 3377 in Barangay Lambug.
In the CDO, the mayor stated that the beach houses were built without necessary permits.
Nillas said that another violation was the construction of the structures within the 20-meter easement zone.
But in their reply to Lumain’s CDO, Chan’s legal counsels said the structures are not owned by their client and ‘is not engaged in any ongoing work on Lot 3377.’ Lawyers Barbie Samson and Teachie Norombaba said their client “is already old and in the twilight of his seniors” and has already “divested his interest in Lot No. 3377.” “Our client has always been faithful with respect to legal compliances and obedience to authorities. Thus, he is deeply saddened by the proliferation of malicious reports that he accordingly violated laws and certain local government issuances,” the legal counsels said in their August 30 reply to the CDO.
Nillas said the area where the beach houses were built is part of the sprawling lot that is a subject of a land dispute case between the owner’s heirs and individuals who had bought some portions of the land.
“In the assessor’s office, it still is intact, there is no subdivision yet but in the transactions that we obtained, it was already divided,” Nillas said in Visayan.
Nillas said the OBO is not discounting the possibility that the subject of the CDO is not really the owner of the structures being questioned.
But while Chan denied owning the structures being constructed, Nillas questioned why the subject had been showing up in the meetings that the Municipal Environment and Natural Resources had called for to thresh out the issue.
“Why would they show up if they are not the ones who appeared in the CDO?” said Nillas.
Aside from beach houses, Nillas said a structure that looked like a swimming pool is being constructed in the area.
“They won’t admit that it is a swimming pool but it looked like one,” said Nillas.