GUBAT, Sorsogon — The purchase of Local Government Unit (LGU) Gubat of the house and lot of Municipal Councilor Roxan Escanilla made him an instant millionaire.
The purchase was intended to access a yet to be constructed road going to the propose urbanize housing project of the town.
He was paid for the 150sqm lot 750 thousand pesos and for the two storey house constructed at the 150 sqm lot he received 3,185,500 earning Escanilla 3,935,500 pesos.
The value of the appraised lot by the provincial appraisal committee was 975 thousand but he was paid 750 thousand less than the appraisal amount considered by the province which was accepted making an observation of an alleged decoy that a saving of taxpayers money was made.
To clarify Escanilla is a member of the Sanggunian Bayan of Gubat and happened to be the Chairman of the Committee on Budget and inhibited himself when the issue was taken by the council.
But questions remains in the approval of the budget to purchase his property and another property adjacent to his.
When he inhibited does it follow that his influence among the other members of the council was not at play as he chairs one of the most coveted committees. Or was it a deliberate strategy to make the transaction appear reasonable that ethical propriety was not left out?
Did Escanilla showed as record of the council minutes may prove that he was adverse to the transaction? Did the theory of advantageous to the interest of the local government in the long run when they purchase the property without exhaustion of possible conflict of interest for the seller is a party-mate of the mayor and majority of the council members?
And the only thing that a poor Juan knows with the Escanilla story is that he was made a millionaire courtesy of LGU Gubat.