Mayor ordered suspended for blocking Nokor vessel salvage

LAOAG CITY—Ilocos Norte Gov. Imee Marcos on Wednesday approved the suspension of Pagudpud Mayor Matilde Sales after the mayor defied an order to remove the wreck of a North Korean vessel from the town’s shores.

Marcos signed the provincial board’s recommendation imposing a 60-day preventive suspension on Sales, which would take effect immediately.

“If this is the price I have to pay for defending the interest of my people, then so be it,” Sales said in a text message to the Inquirer.

Her lawyer, Juanito Antonio, said he would seek a court order to stop the suspension.

Sales is also facing another court battle at the Regional Trial Court in Bangui town. She won temporary victory when Judge Rosemarie Ramos granted her petition for a temporary restraining order (TRO) prohibiting Ao Yang Marine Co. Ltd., the owner of the MV Nam Yang 8, from disposing of the vessel or entering the wreck.

Sales told the court that there was no other physical asset from which the town could rely on to protect its claim for damages other than the salvage value of the vessel. The prohibition will last until June 19.

Sales said she did not intend to defy any order for the wreck’s removal. However, she said representatives of the vessel’s owner “surreptitiously” moved scrap metal from the vessel out of Pagudpud and sold these to junkyards.

“More than half of the vessel had been taken out of Pagudpud. How about our claims for damages?” she said.

Sales said she was only blocking the transfer of scrap metal out of Pagudpud and not the removal of the wreck from the shores.

She said the vessel owner has not taken any action to assure the town that its claims, about P15 million in damaged marine resources, are paid.

She said the vessel’s supposed insurance coverage has been raised as a guarantee.