Excessive fees stir furor in Puerto Galera
THE LONG, white sand beaches in Puerto Galera draw local and foreign tourists. Tourism generates 90 percent of the annual local revenue. MARICAR CINCO/INQUIRER SOUTHERN LUZON
SAN PEDRO CITY—A group of beach resort and restaurant owners in Puerto Galera, Oriental Mindoro’s tourism capital, sought charges against the mayor of the town over what it claimed to be redundant and unexplained fees being collected from them and their employees.
The Puerto Galera Business and Tourism Enterprises Association (PGBTEA) Inc., headed by Romeo Roxas, had asked the Office of the Ombudsman to place Puerto Galera Mayor Hubbert Christopher Dolor and municipal treasurer Juanito Sungay under preventive suspension for “dishonesty, oppression and grave misconduct.”
The 11-page complaint filed by the group on March 24 also named Hiyas Govinda Dolor, the mayor’s sister-in-law, as a respondent.
A joint affidavit from a group of boat owners and photocopies of receipts issued by the municipal government for business permits and community taxes supported the complaint.
Hiyas owns Seventh Star Drug Test Laboratory, which facilitates drug tests as a requirement for pump boat operators, guest relations officers and employees of tourism establishments before they are issued mayor’s permits to work in Puerto Galera.
The complaint said workers are made to pay P150 in excess of the mandated fee to obtain mayor’s permits.
But Dolor, who is in his third term as mayor, said it was only “coincidental” that the laboratory is owned by his sister-in-law.
In a phone interview, also Wednesday, he said Seventh Star has been conducting the drug tests since 2005, long before he was elected mayor. Dolor, a doctor, was the municipal health officer at the time.
Aside from drug tests, the complaint also cited “similar or identical” fees being collected from business owners.
For instance, Roxas, who runs a resort for 12 years now, said he was being charged separately for permits to operate facilities like a bar, restaurant, swimming pool and a jet ski, “when they should be considered already subsumed under the operations of a resort or a restaurant business.”
“I have a friend who pays for 11 [permits], his [resort] looked like [a room] full of framed [business] permits like plaques. I feel stupid paying for the swimming pool on top of the business permit,” he said.
Roxas said PGBTEA, with 35 members at present, also questioned some “unexplained” charges such as P75 for a “house” fee and P100 for “good moral” fee.
Roxas said 70 percent of business owners are foreigners. “Many [resorts] are closing down. Economically, Puerto Galera is shrinking,” he said.
