A local Filipino-Chinese businessman recently stopped short of accusing Cagayan de Oro city officials of begging him to donate a considerably huge land property just so it can be mortgaged along with other city public properties to secure a P1 billion loan.

“I was duped in donating my property,” reads Gusa Eastbound Public Utility Jeepney (PUJ) Terminal land donor James Giam wrote a four-page letter to City Mayor Constantino Jaraula last Monday.

He said he donated his property for the sole purpose of establishing the Gusa Eastbound PUJ Terminal to decongest traffic at Barangay Lapasan and that of other areas located east of this city and that such condition was accepted by the City Council.

Yet, Giam said Mayor Constantino Jaraula has now issued an order now allowing eastbound PUJs to establish terminals at these same areas, specifically at Limketkai Center and Ororama MegaCenter.

He said this is in direct contradiction to the conditions by which he donated his property, the duly approved city ordinances and the actual need of the city to really decongest these areas where traffic volume is increasing exponentially.

Giam is now asking Mayor Constantino Jaraula to revoke this executive ordinance CGJ 2008-39 or the latter shall be facing “legal actions” in court.

Giam’s letter carried attachments of the documents pertaining to his conditional deed of donation, pertinent city ordinances/resolutions and the Land Bank of the Philippines (Landbank) documents that listed the City’s properties, including his donated Gusa land property, that were all mortgaged for P1 billion during the administration of then Mayor Vicente Emano.

City Legal Office through Atty. Mart Maandig is supporting Giam on this matter by issuing last May 14, 2008 his second Endorsement Letter advising the lawyer-mayor that his executive order must be revoked being an “ultra-vires order.”

This as it contradicts numerous laws and city ordinances including the conditions of the Deed of Donation stipulated by Giam and accepted by the City Government.

“(It) is intrinsically infirmed and defective for being discriminatory in character in clear violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution,” Maandig’s letter reads. (See separate story)

Magtajas administration

Giam’s letter narrated how as early as 1996, he was begged by the then City Mayor Pablo Magtajas to donate his Gusa property to be converted into a terminal considering that traffic at that time was building east of the city.

He said he responded to Magtajas’ request by offering to donate the property in 1997 to be converted into a passenger terminal but that this should be done within a one year period. The Magtajas period at that time agreed but failed to establish any such terminal on Giam’s property.

In 1999, Giam said the City Council now under the Emano Administration passed Resolution No. 4184-99 manifesting the continuing intention of the City Government to indeed put up a passenger terminal at Barangay Gusa and authorized Emano to negotiate with Giam to extend the one-year period proviso.

The Gusa PUJ Eastbound Terminal was finally established under Emano’s watch, he said.

But records show that during Emano last term, he allowed a number of eastbound PUJs particularly those plying his hometown, Tagoloan, Misamis Oriental to enter the city limits and put up terminals at the Ororama MegaCenter, Lapasan.

P1 billion loan

When Jaraula came in last July 2007, City Hall documents reveal that one of the mayor’s first orders was to have all PUJ routes returned to Bulua Westbound Terminal and Gusa Eastbound Terminals.

But just last May 5, 2008, Jaraula now issued executive order now allowing entry for all PUJs plying eastward into the city and hold terminal at either Limketkai or Ororama MegaCenter instead of doing so at Gusa Eastbound PUJ Terminal.

Giam said Jaraula’s EO claimed that he has conducted numerous “studies and consultations” saying that the Lapasan area and those east of the city are now experiencing monstrous traffic problems.

And, yet Jaraula is saying that the solution to this traffic problem is to now allow these eastbound PUJs to enter and hold terminals at these areas that are supposedly having traffic problems, he said.

Giam said all these are “clear violations” of the conditions stipulated under the Deed of Donation that he issued and thus, he was just “duped” in donating the property for City Hall to secure a P1 billion loan with Land Bank.

“I was duped in donating my property on the belief that the same will be used to decongest the traffic at Lapasan area,” he said.

“But the truth of the matter is the fact that my property was mortgaged and used to secure in part the ONE BILLION loan of the City Government of Cagayan de Oro to the Land Bank of the Philippines.