Politician-siblings fighting over a multi-billion peso project? This could be a plot for a telenovela.
“Senator Cynthia Villar and her brother Las Piñas City Mayor Vergel Aguilar have found themselves on opposite sides of Manila Bay over a P14-billion reclamation project whose implementation has been affirmed by the Court of Appeals,” reports Ferdinand Fabella in Manila Standard Today.
To make a long story short, Aguilar wants the project to push through, but Villar doesn’t. In fact, the report said that “Villar petitioned the Supreme Court to reverse the Court of Appeals 3rd Division’s ruling that junked her application for a Writ of Kalikasan and a temporary environmental protection order to stop the reclamation of a 635-hectare portion of the bay, covering the cities of Las Piñas, Parañaque, and Bacoor, Cavite.”
The report quoted Aguilar, who said, “I don’t know why Senator Cynthia Villar, who happens to be my sister, is opposing development. I am convinced that the Alltech Coastal Bay Project is not detrimental to the environment and would bring in the needed economic development in terms of livelihood and will provide 20,000 jobs for the residents.”
Meanwhile, Villar insists that the project would disrupt the Las Piñas-Parañaque Critical Habitat and Ecotourism Area, which is home to over 195 bird species.
Photo from Senator Cynthia Villar’s website
