Thousands of students of Aliaga National High School (ANHS) in Nueva Ecija province and its alumni are now calling Interior Secretary Manuel “Mar” Roxas 2nd to investigate Mayor Marcial Vargas of Aliaga and his wife, Vice Mayor Beth Vargas, over the couple’s attempt to grab the almost seven hectares of land donated for the said school.

The concerned citizens and alumni of Aliaga National High School also cautioned Department of Education (DepEd) Secretary Armin Luistro not to give in to the attempt of the Vargas couple for the department to pay an alleged heir of the donated land for the use of the said school.

In their open letter submitted to the Department of Interior and Local Government and the DepEd, the group said that the seven-hectare land was originally donated by the Medina family (Vicente, Josefa, Amadea and Casiano Medina) in 1946 through a ‘Deed of Donation’ signed by the Medina siblings and was given to then mayor David Villamin.

However, the group said that at present the bigger chunk of the lot were being used by the Vargas couple for their own construction business.

“The Vargas couple now use the bigger portion of the lot for their motor pool and batching plant. Once they ascended the mayoralty, they had a building built on the site called Aliaga Livelihood Foundation Inc. but only the Vargas couple use the building for their business,” the group explained.

“Mayor Vargas is now laying claim to the lot donated to the school by having a deed of donation in February 2011 to give the school’s lot to Brgy. Poblacion East 2 to house a barangay hall and a playground,” they added in their letter.

They added that the couple assigned heir Cesar Medina to dupe the DepEd to pay for the said vast school facility.

In the Tax Declaration of the contested land, the Municipal Assessor noted that the Cadastral Lot 2051, though still under the name of Vicente Medina as an owner, has an exclusivity clause that said that the land will only be used for “Educational Purposes.”

The group claimed that last month the Vargas couple began fencing the big part of the land to be used by their workers and machineries of their ‘construction business’ and pointed to Cesar Medina as the one who ordered it.

Vargas’s letter to Luistro requested that payment should be rendered to Cesar Medina, the heir who inherited the land.Vargas, the group claimed is just using Cesar Medina to grab the vast land for their own personal gain.