Resort facility snubs SP

MABALACAT CITY -- A resort facility here has repeatedly snubbed invitations from the City Council to attend en banc committee hearings to address issues bearing on the said facility.

Paradise Ranch, through its spokesperson and administrative head, Roman Goce, in his letter dated October 9, 2012, countered that the topic of discussion in the hearings “are (sic) too broad to resolve in one sitting.”

In the said letter, Goce enumerated the issues for resolution by and through the City Council as: dismantling of bill boards and satellite office put up by the Province of Tarlac at Paradise Ranch; territorial jurisdiction over sitio Monicayo; issuance of business permits to Paradise Ranch by the municipal government of Bamban, Tarlac.

During the city hood bid of Mabalacat in the Senate, committee chair Senator Ferdinand "Bongbong" R. Marcos, Jr.,ruled that the issue of the territorial jurisdiction over Barangay Calumpang will be resolved after the city hood bid has been done and that the issue is better left to the Sangguniang Panlalawigans of the provinces of Pampanga and Tarlac.

Despite the status quo, Paradise Ranch applied for business permits at Bamban, Tarlac, instead of at Mabalacat City where, in the previous years, it has done so.

Additionally, Goce volunteered that the issue can be resolved with finality only with the participation and attendance of the representatives of the indigenous people of sitio Monicayo; the regional offices of the National Commission on Indigenous People (NCIP) and Department of Environment and Natural Resources, mayors of Bamban, Tarlac and Mabalacat City, Representatives Lapuz of Tarlac and Lazatin of Pampanga and the governors of Pampanga, Lilia G. Pineda and Tarlac, Victor Yap. (Reynaldo G. Navales)