Laguna town has new mayor for a week

SAN PEDRO, Laguna – For at least a week, Norvic Solidum, this town’s vice mayor, will sit as the local chief executive.

Solidum was sworn in as new mayor at 4 p.m. on Monday by Josefina Castilla-Go, director of the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) in Calabarzon (Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal, Quezon), after the removal order of Mayor

Calixto Cataquiz was served.

Cataquiz was not in his office when the DILG executive posted the order on the office door.

By June 30, however, when the newly elected officials will assume their posts, Solidum will have to turn over the mayoral seat to Lourdes Cataquiz, the wife of the ousted mayor, who substituted for her disqualified husband in the mayoral race and went on to win the race.

In April, Cataquiz was ordered by Malacañang to step down following a Sept. 14, 2011, ruling of the Supreme Court that found him guilty of graft while he was general manager of the Laguna Lake Development Authority (LLDA) in 2001.

The high court imposed on him a penalty of disqualification from reemployment in government service based on a complaint filed by the workers’ union Concerned Employees of the LLDA. The election ban on appointments, however, delayed the serving of the removal order, although the same gave way to Cataquiz’s disqualification from running in the midterm polls.

Cataquiz, a member of Nacionalista Party, decided not to appeal his disqualification and instead fielded his wife, Lourdes, as substitute  three days before Election Day. Lourdes won, beating Solidum, who also ran for mayor with the Liberal Party.

Solidum, in a phone interview, acknowledged that there was not much he could accomplish in a week’s time as a mayor, but said, “the point is to show the people that Cataquiz was removed because of corruption.”

“This is all about justice and the lesson here is not to steal from government coffers,” he said from the village hall of San Vicente where he took his oath.

Solidum is a former village captain of San Vicente before he became vice mayor.

Some 800 Cataquiz supporters have been camping out at the government building since Sunday night in an attempt to prevent Solidum from entering the building.