MAGUINDANAO GOV SAYS WEALTH FRUITS OF FAMILY’S HARD WORK

By Manny Piñol

Maguindanao Governor Esmael Mangudadatu has dismissed as plain demolition job and black propaganda the articles circulating in the social media accusing him of unexplained wealth saying that the properties that his family owns all came from legitimate business undertakings which he started even before he was elected Governor in 2010.

“I have never attempted to hide whatever my family owns because I earned through hard work and these properties are all reflected in my Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth (SALN),” said the 2nd-term Governor who is known to be one of the richest provincial governors in the country today.

Mangudadatu said that long before he was elected Governor of Maguindanao following the massacre of his wife, sisters, relatives and members of the media in Ampatuan, Maguindanao on Nov. 23, 2009, his family was already involved in Bangus and Tilapia production and he is one of the biggest fish producers in Mindanao.

Since the early 1990s, the Mangudadatu family has been involved in Tilapia production in Lake Buluan, considered part of the ancestral areas of the Governor’s family, a business undertaking which brings in gross earnings of over P100-M every year, he said.

“We have over 1,000 hectares of Tilapia fishpens in Lake Buluan and over 500 hectares of Bangus fishpens in Davao del Sur and these are business activities which I started as early as the 1990s in partnership with investors from Manila. Later, I ventured on my own fish production program and I am now among the biggest suppliers of seawater Bangus and Lake Buluan tilapia,” the Governor said.

“I really should not be talking openly about this because I find this totally ridiculous but I have to emphasise that I did not gain my wealth by stealing money from government,” said Mangudadatu, who in his last tax return declared assets and properties worth over P100-M for which he said he properly paid the corresponding taxes.

Responding to an article which claimed that his family owned Hummers and helicopters, Mangudadatu said the Hummer vehicle shown in the black propaganda articles against him was actually given to him by a fish trader as payment for a huge supply of fish which was not paid for.

“The Hummer was in payment for a debt and it is not even running. Right now that Hummer is in the repair shop. The green helicopter shown in the picture is owned by Beeline Corporation, a helicopter leasing company owned by businessman Benigno Gopez,” he said.

He said that the other picture showing a white Raven helicopter was actually taken in 2008. It was used in a skydiving exhibition during the provincial anniversary of Maguindanao and he said his son, Buluan Vice Mayor King Jhazzer Mangudadatu, a student pilot, posed for a picture with his friends beside the chopper.

Mangudadatu also dismissed as a “ridiculous lie” the claim that he and his family recently bought a $100-M house in the United States, a claim by his detractors spurred by a picture showing his son, King, standing in front of a beautiful house in the US.

“King just saw that beautiful house in the US and decided to have his picture taken in front of it. We don’t even know who the owner of the house is,” he said.

On the issue of his recent trip to Las Vegas, Nevada to witness the Pacquiao-Mayweather fight, Gov. Mangudadatu said that the claim that he travelled “en masse” with other members of his family was a blatant lie saying there were only three of them in the group, including his son, King, and that they travelled at their own expense.

After the Las Vegas fight, Gov. Mangudadatu, accompanied by former North Cotabato Governor Manny Piñol, travelled to the desert farmlands of Coachella Valley in Southern California where they made arrangements for the launching of the “Peace Farmers Program,” a “learning by doing” technology transfer scheme which would involve sending 12 agriculture students, three traditional farmers, all representing the three tribal groups in Maguindanao Province – Muslim, Christian and Tiruray – and three college professors to the US to learn more about modern agriculture.

“The issue should not be what I and my family own but it should be whether I stole money from government to buy the things that I own now,” Mangudadatu said.

(Photo caption: Gov. Mangudadatu viewing a wide seedless watermelon plantation in Coachella Valley. Photo by Bernhart Immanuel Piñol)