QC solon, MMDA exec clash over clearing operation

A Quezon City lawmaker and a Metro Manila Development Authority official figured in a heated argument Wednesday over a sidewalk clearing operation, with the former throwing a punch during the altercation. A GMA News flash report showed Quezon City’s Representative Vincent “Bingbong" Crisologo and MMDA sidewalk clearing operations head Roberto Esquievel, arguing while the MMDA personnel were in the midst of clearing shanties at a creekside near the south-bound lane of EDSA in Muñoz, Quezon City. Crisologo had arrived at the scene to confront the MMDA whom he said did not have the proper documents to back the clearing operation. MMDA personnel led by Esquievel and accompanied by its lawyers insisted that that the operation was legal. A heated argument culminated in Crisologo throwing a punch at Esquievel after the latter shrugged off the lawmaker’s arm. Moments later, the lawmaker was seen chasing after a uniformed MMDA member. Police later kept the contending parties apart. MMDA personnel were also said to have been withdrawn from the area to ease the tension. Both parties are mulling over the filing of charges against each other. Crisoologo, 59, won a fresh three-year term as Representative of Quezon City’s 1st district in the May 14 elections. Crisologo gained notoriety in the 1970s when he was convicted of burning down two villages in Bantay town in his native Ilocus Sur province, a charge which he has insisted was a frame-up by their family's political enemies. He was sentenced to life imprisonment for arson in 1976 and imprisoned at the New Bilibid Prisons in Muntinlupa where Crisologo became active in a Catholic evangelical group. He was released in 1981 on a presidential pardon by the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos. In 1982, Crisologo founded a Catholic evangelical group that now claims a million members. Having moved to Quezon City, he was elected Representative in 2004. -GMANews.TV