The ex-Candaba mayor’s demo farms

Not all those who are charged with plunder stole from the government.

Some of them were probably charged because they happened to be on the wrong side of the political fence.

Take the case of former Candaba Mayor Jerry Pelayo, a close ally of former President Gloria. Both are from Pampanga province.

Pelayo has been charged with plunder in the Office of the Ombudsman in connection with an alleged P127.7 million in ghost projects that were supposed to be implemented in the last nine years.

The question is: Who are those  making the charges against the former mayor?

“They are not farmers, they are barangay tanod (village guards) who are protégés of the current mayor (Mayor Rene Estacio Maglanque),” Pelayo told me over the phone.

The complainants allege that “equipment like hand tractors, irrigation pumps, planting materials, pesticides, seeds and the like that were supposed to be used for the demo farm were not delivered to the municipality of Candaba.”

But the former mayor said he could account for all the things that were not supposedly delivered to the demo farm.

“I was cleared by the Office of the Ombudsman in 2008 after I liquidated everything delivered to me,” he said.

A huge chunk of the amount— P127.7 million—went to the building of irrigation canals and the digging up of the channel for water coming from the Candaba Swamp to be diverted to the demo farm, Pelayo added.

Had the complainants asked him where the money went, Pelayo said, he would have given them the list of expenditures.

But the complainants didn’t come to him allegedly on the prodding of Mayor Rene Estacio Maglanque, to whom Pelayo lost in the last election.

Maglanque, assistant secretary at the Department of Transportation and Communications during the Arroyo administration, is said to be a business partner of detained businesswoman Janet Lim-Napoles.

Napoles is facing a plunder charge for the alleged diversion of pork barrel funds amounting to P10 billion to her bogus firms and some politicians.

“Now, between me and Maglanque, who is a business partner of Napoles, who would you believe?” Pelayo asked.

Asked about his demo farm inside the former Clark Air Base, now an economic zone, Pelayo said he was driven out of Clark by the present management of  Clark Development Corp.

Obviously, this was because he was identified with former President Gloria, Pelayo said.

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I haven’t met Pelayo, but I once phoned him to ask if he could teach modern farming to me and my farmhands in Puerto Princesa City.

Pelayo readily agreed and even said he and his farm technicians would come to my farm in the city’s Barangay Bacungan and stay there for several days, and I would not have to pay him a single centavo for the effort.

But the plan for Pelayo to stay in my pilot farm was postponed several times  because I had  been tied down to my work in Manila.

I’ve heard a lot of good things about Pelayo’s demonstration farms in Candaba and Clark.

A friend of mine, Bong Amurao, a retired police colonel, went to Pelayo’s demo farm and was effusive in his praises for the then Candaba mayor.

I learned about Pelayo’s demo farm from Amurao, former chief of police of Puerto Princesa City.

Pelayo grows all kinds of vegetables and fruits in his farm like sweet corn, arugula, cauliflower, tomato, papaya and water melon.

He had big plans for vegetable farmers in Luzon but these were overtaken by political events.