Pampanga town execs bicker over office space
CITY OF SAN FERNANDO — Tension erupted Friday in Magalang town, Pampanga as Vice Mayor Norman Lacson began resisting a memorandum by Mayor Romulo Pecson ordering the former to vacate his office within 72 hours.
The 72-hour deadline to Lacson to move out of the first floor of Bren Z. Guaio Legislative and Judicial Building has lapsed at 9 a.m. Friday, but the official has stayed put.
“The mayor has not talked to me or even offered me an alternative place. Memo agad (He immediately issued a memorandum),” Lacson said in a phone interview.
Pecson said he was “merely returning an office to its right places.” The vice mayor, he added, has occupied what used to be the Business Processing and Licensing Office (BPLO).
The vice mayor, who is on his third term, explained that he moved to the BPLO at the request of former Mayor Malou Paras-Lacson, his sister-in-law, so that the local government could efficiently run a one-stop-shop in their administration.
Pecson’s action was “drastic and capricious,” he said, adding that he earned the ire of the local chief executive when he asked two unidentified persons to coordinate with employees about a piece of equipment they were installing at the legislative hall on Monday.
By 3 p.m. that day, the mayor sent two policemen to guard the still unidentified persons in installing the equipment.
The next day, Pecson sent him the unnumbered memorandum dated November 11. Lacson said the sort of eviction order was uncalled for because he and the municipal legislative council had approved all the measures the mayor has proposed in the last five months.
“If what provoked him was my official act of requesting coordination, then I am taking his eviction order and bullying an abuse of authority,” Lacson said.
Pecson said he was not going to use force to remove the vice mayor from the BPLO.
Pampanga Gov. Dennis Pineda said he has asked the Department of Interior and Local Government to help settle the matter as he appealed to the two officials to stay calm.
Edited by KGA
