CALASIAO, Pangasinan—No pay, no school.
This seems to be the message of a former village chief to the town government when he padlocked the gates of a public elementary school here on Wednesday, keeping pupils, teachers and parents outside the school premises for at least three hours.
But Mayor Mark Roy Macanlalay ignored the move of former Malabago village chief Celedonio Carcha and went to Malabago Elementary School to force the gates open.
“This is too much. I can no longer allow this bullying,” Macanlalay said.
The Inquirer tried but failed to reach Carcha for comment on Wednesday.
The problem, Macanlalay said, began when Carcha lost in his reelection bid in the October 2010 barangay elections.
Macanlalay said Carcha started telling villagers then that the school would be closed the following school year because he was taking back the 3,000-square meter lot that his family had donated to the school in 2003.
Carcha was apparently citing a provision in the lot’s conditional deed of donation that the donation would only take effect if he completed three terms as barangay captain.
“But there’s no such thing,” said Pangasinan legal officer Geraldine Baniqued. “What was in the deed of donation was that it was to take effect upon his assumption as barangay captain in 2004,” she said.
Macanlalay said all the other provisions in the deed of donation were complied with, including the employment of Carcha’s niece as a teacher and of his brother as school janitor.
“He asked that the school be named after his father, Herman Carcha. But his father is still alive,” Macanlalay said.
Under the Local Government Code, Baniqued said, no public school may be named after a living person.
Macanlalay said that during the first day of classes on Monday, Carcha had padlocked the school gates, prompting him to invite the former village chief to a meeting at the town hall on Tuesday.
“We already had negotiations. I told him that the town government will just buy the lot but that the acquisition will have to go through a process,” Macanlalay said.
But Macanlalay said Carcha seemed to be in a hurry to get the payment.
“He asked me if he can already have at least a third of the payment. And when I told him it will take two to three months before I could give him that, he said he would think about it,” Macanlalay said.
He said the meeting was also attended by the district supervisor, school principal and the Malabago village chief.
“I was surprised when he padlocked the school again. He can’t hold us hostage. I will not allow it,” Macanlalay said.
He said he had asked the court to issue an order restraining Carcha and his family from going near the school premises to prevent them from closing it again and disrupting classes. Gabriel Cardinoza, Inquirer Northern Luzon