Sunday, March 16, 2008 Top official urged to quit post By Marna H. Dagumboy
CITY OF SAN FERNANDO -- A concerned citizen here has urged the top provincial official being linked to a "fatherless child" to quit his post "to spare his constituents from embarrassment."
In an email sent to Sun.Star Pampanga, a certain William Liongson appealed to the top provincial official -- who is rumored to be the alleged father of "Rafael" -- to resign from his post for "delicadeza."
"For the sake of this top provincial official's supporters, he should resign from his post to spare his constituents from embarrassment," Liongson stated in his letter.
He cited as an example the sacrifice of the State of New York Governor Eliot Spitzer as a show of "delicadeza" following his resignation from the governorship of his state after he was allegedly linked in a sex scandal.
"He (Spitzer) did not dare ask his accusers to "prove it in court" just as we Filipinos read everyday in the newspapers whenever an official is being accused of wrongdoings. In decent societies mere suspicion is a reason to quit and free the institution from scandal," he added.
Earlier, a birth certificate of a boy named "Rafael" born in 1993 at the Capitol Medical Center in Quezon City was circulated in Metro Manila.
A top provincial official is alleged to be the father of the boy.
Copies of the birth certificate that also circulated in watering holes of newsmen in the metropolis showed that the boy has no father and his mother, unmarried.
The boy's mother, whose first name is Lourdes, was indicated in the document, but the father's name was not.
The address written on the document showed that mother and son live in an upscale village in Quezon City owned, according to a source, by former senator Eva Estrada Kalaw.
It is near the village where Vice President Noli de Castro lives, the source said.
The provincial official's alleged son, the source said, is studying in the US and is reportedly in town for a vacation.
At the Lakas-Kampi convention at the Manila Hotel last Monday, copies of the document were distributed to Pampanga delegates, the source added.
Unknown to the source, some of those who got copies were close to the official.
