Cataquiz is still San Pedro Town Mayor

Manila – A town mayor of a bustling suburb south of Manila has clarified that he is still the head of his first class municipality, even if the Philippines’ highest court recently issued a decision particularly disqualifying him from holding future administrative or appointive offices in the government.

“I am still the mayor of San Pedro,” strongly said Calixto R. Cataquiz, as he explained that “My position as a town mayor of San Pedro is elective and not administrative or appointive.”

Cataquiz made his clarification after his political rivals in Laguna’s first class municipality adjacent to Metro Manila spread rumors that he was already disqualified from being the chief executive of San Pedro where he won a landslide victory over his political opponents in 2010 elections.

“My political enemies used against me the recent Supreme Court’s decision baselessly disallowing me from holding future administrative or appointive positions in the government,” reiterated Cataquiz .

Cataquiz said the Supreme Court’s decision, which he emphasized was still appealed by his lawyers, seemed already “moot and academic” since that the country’s Chief Public Prosecution Office (Ombudsman) already dismissed, due to baseless charges, the case filed many years ago by his detractors seeking to dismiss him as the chief of Laguna Lake Development Authority (LLDA) .

“In the first place, I resigned as LLDA chairman and was not dismissed,” Cataquiz further stressed, as he emphasized that the politically motivated and baseless administrative charges to dismiss him as LLDA chairman were already rendered futile by the time the then dismissal proceedings were filed before the 2007 election period when he successfully made a political come back in his hometown San Pedro.

Cataquiz was appointed by then President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in early 2000 as LLDA Chairman after completing three successive terms as San Pedro town Mayor since 1988.

Cataquiz’s political rivals, including Vice mayor Norvic Solidum, have desperately resorted to mudslingings and rumor mongerings, including San Pedro’s mayor was seriously ill and must be replaced with an OIC (Officer-in-Charge).

After Cataquiz donated his family-owned lands where a public hospital and the new five-star type town hall were erected, Solidum and San Vicente village chief Mark Allan Villena, frantically maneuvered to make last ditch efforts to petition at the higher legislative bodies to create the new municipality of San Vicente , consisting of their known political bailiwicks in Pacita Complex, but to no avail.