Bulacan town residents demand ouster of mayor

BALIWAG, Bulacan—Residents here on Wednesday filed a recall petition in the local office of the Commission on Elections against Baliwag Mayor Carolina Dellosa, asserting that they have lost confidence in her leadership and accusing her of allowing her husband to run the town instead.

The petition, which was started by Ramon Payumo and Angelita Santos of Barangay Sto. Cristo, and Bernard Fabian of Barangay Pagala, gathered 23,925 signatures from the town’s 27 villages.

The number of signatories surpassed the required 15 percent of Baliwag’s voting population for a recall petition, or 13,722 of the town’s 91,484 voters.

But Dellosa’s camp said the recall petition was politically motivated.

“They are accusing us of incompetence. But how can one who has raised revenue and collection because of good governance be incompetent?” said the mayor’s husband, James Dellosa, who serves as the mayor’s spokesperson.

“The municipality is now earning more,” he said.

James, an engineer who works at the Department of Public Works and Highways’ Visayas office, is the brother of retired Gen. Jessie Dellosa, former chief of staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines.

Maria Gina Llave, Baliwag municipal election officer, received 16 sets of the petition as well as a filing fee of P30,000 from the group.

In their petition, the residents said they had lost confidence in Dellosa, accusing her of allowing her husband to run the municipal government in her stead.

The petitioners accused the Dellosas of displaying “greed for political power, which works against public interest and the general welfare.”

They also accused the couple of lacking respect for “the clamor of the people who elected her” and of “[lacking] regard for public officials, subordinates and lowly employees, which is conduct unbecoming of public officials.”

They also complained about the allegedly “constant insistence of her husband to usurp the powers of authority vested upon other public officials and her antagonistic attitude toward development concerns.”

They said the mayor’s husband had “been actively ruling the whole municipality and is known to have extensive connections with military personnel, thus controlling the town with the armed presence of his military cohorts. Carmela Reyes-Estrope, Inquirer Central Luzon