Sambag 1 resident wants Labella to reopen investigation on ‘donated chickens’

CEBU CITY, Philippines — It seems like the controversy behind the “donated chickens” here won’t be over yet.

This after a group of residents from Barangay Sambag 1, led by a certain Marco Licinio Flores Gingoyon, has once again written to Mayor Edgardo Labella to reopen the investigation of the “lost chickens” after a former executive assistant of Councilor Prisca Niña Mabatid filed charges against her for using her staff to sell dressed chickens.

Read: Mabatid accused for ‘side business’, including ‘selling of dressed chickens’

The allegations were already denied by Mabatid in a previous statement, where she said that the chickens were not sold but were distributed as donations and that the former executive assistant was fired for defying her orders.

It can be remembered that cases were filed by the same group against Councilor Eduardo Rama, Jr., for allegedly selling donated chicken. But he has  provided proof that these chickens were actually distributed to proper beneficiaries.

Read: Appeal for investigation on ‘donated chickens’ denied by Cebu City council majority

Gingoyon, in a letter to Labella, said both incidents may have been connected as the distribution of the donated 17,000 chickens to the barangays by Rama, the selling of cheap chickens to residents in Sambag I, and the distribution of the “donated” chickens as claimed by Mabatid, all happened in May 2020.

“Again, I am requesting the City Mayor to immediately order an investigation on the matter, considering that other persons, not only our city officials may be involved. I am also asking our city councilors to look into the matter and conduct a separate investigation on this information,” said Gingoyon.

Read: City councilor: Where did donated chicken go?

“The issue is far from over. Until and unless we go the bottom of the controversy, this issue will not die down, and it will cast a doubt on the integrity of our city public officials,” part of his letter read.

Furthermore, Gingoyon claimed that the New Normal Oasis for Adaptation and a Home (NOAH) Complex also accepted 5,000 worth of dressed chickens.

But in a phone interview with CDN Digital, Jocelyn Pesquera, who leads the management of NOAH, said that they did not accept the 5,000 live chickens supposedly donated for the patients.

She said  NOAH at that time did not have many patients yet and they could not afford to pay P50,000 for the dressing of the chickens nor did they have a big freezer to store the dressed chicken.

Read: Lost chickens found

“We had to refuse the chickens. It was a good donation, we thank their donations, but we cannot afford to dress or store the chickens. We do not have coops to keep them alive, nor freezers to store the dressed chickens,” said Pesquera.

Gingoyon, in his letter, hopes the city mayor would hear out their complaints and conduct an investigation on the matter to put the  “lost chickens” controversy to rest.

Labella has yet to comment on the letter of the Sambag I residents.

/bmjo