Mayor faces graft rap over cemetery lot deal

SAN PEDRO, Laguna—Recently convicted of graft by the Supreme Court, Mayor Calixto Cataquiz of this town faces another case of corruption over the allegedly irregular purchase by the municipal government of a parcel of land for a cemetery.

Cataquiz was charged with violating the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act for the purchase in 2008 of a 16,808-square-meter lot in Barangay San Vicente that cost P16 million.

Also charged were Erlinda Sietereales, municipal information officer, and Erlinda’s daughter, Katrina.

The complaint, filed at the Ombudsman on Nov. 14, said the lot purchase “prejudiced the people of San Pedro, Laguna.”

Residents Danilo Berciles, William Obrero Jr., Teresita Armada, Ronald Few Dasig, Carlito Ramirez and Emmanuel Duran were listed as complainants in the case.

The land’s registered owners were members of the Sietereales family. In 1998, it was mortgaged for P6 million to the Entrepreneur Rural Bank Inc. (formerly Rural Bank of Unisan Quezon Inc.) which the complaint said belonged to the family of Mayor Cataquiz.

The mayor’s wife, Lourdes, is the bank chair and the couple’s children are members of the board.

In 2008, Mayor Cataquiz wrote the provincial assessor’s office “asking for a just, appropriate and reasonable valuation” for the land that is mortgaged to his family’s bank because the municipal government “is planning to acquire it to be used as a public cemetery.”

Cataquiz, the complaint said, did not disclose that the land was mortgaged to his family’s bank.

In April 2008, the provincial assessor’s office issued a resolution raising the property value to P1,200 per sq m from the original price of P460 per sq m.

Six months later that year, the municipal government bought it for P950 per sq m or a total purchase price of P15.9 million.

“It was very obvious that the subject property was the only subject of the re-appraisal… an apparent show of malicious desire to earn and defraud the municipality of San Pedro,” the complaint said.

It said the mayor’s “partiality was made manifest by the fact that he himself sought its re-appraisal.”

The land, however, has not been developed yet into a cemetery and continues to lie idle.

Cataquiz in 2001 was appointed general manager of the Laguna Lake Development Authority until his ouster in 2003.

Just last month, the Supreme Court upheld an earlier decision by the Office of the President that convicted Cataquiz of graft and barred the mayor from reemployment in any public office.

The Inquirer sought reactions from Cataquiz and Erlinda but both declined to comment saying they haven’t seen a copy of the complaint.

Cataquiz, however, said the case was “only natural (because) we’re in politics.” Cataquiz is on his second term as mayor.