CARP beneficiaries file
raps vs. mayor, cop chief
BUT ISABELA OFFICIALS DENY ALLEGATIONS
BY CARLA GOMEZ

Two agrarian reform beneficiaries have filed multiple-complaints against Isabela Mayor Renato Malabor, the town police chief, and six others before the Office of the Ombudsman for the Visayas.

But Malabor and Isabela police chief, Senior Inspector Virgilio Antipatia de la Cruz, yesterday dismissed the charges against them as fabricated and designed to harass.

Complainants Rudy Deocades and Renato Mandiuya, in a joint affidavit, said they are agrarian reform beneficiaries and members of the Sitio Pangpang Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries Multi-Purpose Cooperative.

Acting Negros Occidental Gov. Isidro Zayco yesterday said he respects the views of the protestors at the rally in Bacolod City on Monday calling on government to bare the truth on the National Broadband Network deal but he believes due process should be granted by allowing hearings on the matter to be concluded.

“We, the elective officials, also are looking for the truth,” Zayco said, as new witnesses made more revelations before the Senate and  former President Corazon Aquino called for President Gloria Arroyo’s resignation.

Lawyer Oliver Lozano also filed another impeachment complaint against the president yesterday.

The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines yesterday did not call for the resignation of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo but instead called on her and all branches of government “to take the lead in combating corruption wherever it is found.”

“We face today a crisis of truth and the pervading cancer of corruption. We must seek the truth and we must restore integrity. These are moral values needing spiritual and moral insights,” the CBCP said.

The bishops issued the call in a pastoral statement after a day-long meeting where Bacolod Bishop Vicente Navarra said they would take into account the current political crisis. He, however, could not be reached for comment on the new pastoral letter as of press time yesterday.