Drama has been brewing between actor and Ormoc City Mayor Richard Gomez and the Philippines’ National Housing Authority.
Officials of the NHA yesterday slammed Gomez for saying that the agency used substandard materials in the construction of houses for victims of the 2017 earthquake that hit the Visayas region. They also hit Gomez for insinuating that the NHA officials in charge of the project were accepting bribes.
In a press conference yesterday, NHA’s chief of staff Christopher Mahamud said Gomez’s insinuations of bribery are considered slanderous, reported ABS-CBN News.
He said: “When you’re trying to imply that the person is receiving [a] bribe, that is slanderous. When you’re trying to imply that the person is guilty of criminal action[s], that is slanderous.”
In the same press conference, Rizalde Mediavillo, the regional manager NHA Region VIII, was shown on news show TV Patrol saying: “They (houses) are not substandard. They are in fact superior.”
NHA’s General Manager Marcelino Escalada Jr. challenged Gomez on Monday to cancel the housing project’s building permits if the mayor thought the construction was really substandard.
He was quoted by an article posted on the NHA’s Facebook page: “As the mayor of Ormoc City, he is authorized to cancel building permits through his city engineers and building officials rather than parading the issue on social media.”
RMN reported that Escalada said that the construction of the houses followed the parameters set by the Department of Public Works and Highways.
But Gomez refused to back down from his word war with the NHA.
In a statement sent to TV Patrol, he addressed Escalada by saying: “If you cannot distinguish a substandard hollow block by just holding it and it breaks then he should not be at the NHA. I challenge him to resign as GM otherwise all resettlement housing will suffer under his watch. This government does not need mediocre people in the housing agency.”
Gomez is possibly referring to a video posted on Ormoc City government’s Facebook account which shows a hollow block crumbling after a man held it. TV Patrol also featured the video in its news report yesterday.
The feud between the NHA and Gomez started when a Facebook post by a certain Kimmy Urboda went viral after it appeared on Sept. 24. It showed Gomez inspecting the controversial housing units for the earthquake victims.
A video also showed him speaking to people on site and saying in a mix of English and Filipino: “Those types of suppliers you shouldn’t pay them. You’re probably paying them the correct amount for this project right? Unless you’re giving something else that why these look cheap … I’m just saying. I know what you guys are doing. It’s impossible that you’re not giving them anything, it’s impossible that they’re not accepting anything. Let’s not fool each other.”
In an interview with GMA News’ show 24 Oras last week, Gomez complained about what he said were substandard materials.
He said in a mix of English and Filipino: “When I checked [the hollow block] that was mounted on the wall, it’s really soft. I’m not an engineer but I can tell you that for me, that is substandard. If those are real hollow blocks, they should be hard. They shouldn’t crumble. I don’t agree [that they’re not substandard] so they should be tested.”
He added: “If those substandard [houses] need to be demolished, we will demolish them.”
In July 2017, a 6.5 magnitude earthquake hit the Visayas region, which left two people dead and 100 injured. The NHA is in charge of building homes in the villages of Gaas and Dolores in Ormoc City for the victims.
Gomez is a famous actor who has been in show business since the 1980s.
It took him several attempts before he successfully managed to become a politician in 2016.
In 2001, he was supposed to run as a party-list representative but his organization was disqualified by the Supreme Court. He ran for senator in 2007 but lost. He was supposed to run for Leyte congressperson in 2010 but was disqualified because he had not lived in the province for at least one year. His wife Lucy, who hails from Ormoc, Leyte ran in his place instead and won.
He ran for Ormoc mayor in 2013 and lost. He won in his second try.
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