Landfill owner faces plunder, other charges

A landfill owner in Trece Martires City has been charged with plunder and perjury in the Office of the Ombudsman for his alleged failure to declare his business interest in his statement of assets, liabilities and net worth (SALN) when he was still a government employee.

Charged was Alex Penalba, the registered operator of Solid Waste Management Corp., who formerly worked as executive assistant of former Trece Martires Mayor Melencio de Sagun Jr.

In four separate complaints, Mark Andrew Villalobos questioned Penalba’s supposed ownership of lands in Trece Martires and the cities of Tagaytay and Makati which, said the complaints, “may have been acquired using his illegally acquired wealth.”

Villalobos, a resident of Trece Martires, said the former government official had also declared in his 2006 SALN that his net worth had increased by P50 million while working for the city government for six years.

“The same respondent has also operated a landfill… since 2002, but he has never disclosed this fact in his SALN,” read a portion of Villalobos’ complaint he filed on Jan. 18.

He claimed Penalba “illegally amassed” his real estate property and other assets through a “series of overt and criminal acts” punishable under Republic Act No. 7080, or the Plunder Law, and RA No. 3019, more known as the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act.

He said the respondent also claimed that he had purchased a 12-hectare land in 2006 through public bidding, but documents showed that Penalba acquired the property through a “waiver of right” of the previous owner.