April 6, 2025
When a former mayor turned congressman claims ignorance of the laws he once enacted—or worse, indifference to them—it’s not a lapse in memory. It’s a display of impunity that erodes the foundation of governance.
Manuel “Chiquiting” Sagarbarria, now a congressman representing Negros Oriental’s 2nd District, recently addressed the controversy over a ₱3.3-billion provincial hospital project in Dumaguete City’s Barangay Piapi. In a video interview, he dismissed clear violations of zoning and building codes, pleading unfamiliarity with regulations he himself signed into law as mayor in 2013. That legislation, the Zoning Ordinance of the City of Dumaguete 2013, or Ordinance No. 82, was designed to protect public safety and guide urban development. Today, it’s being flouted by the very family that ushered it in.
Section 27.2 of the ordinance is explicit: In the IN-2 zoning district, where the hospital site is located, buildings cannot exceed 13.5 meters—roughly three stories. The rule exists for a purpose: Areas like Piapi, with unstable soil and dense surroundings, are ill-suited to towering structures. Yet the provincial government, led by Sagarbarria’s son, Governor Chaco Sagarbarria, launched construction without a zoning clearance, building permit, or fire safety certification. The Dumaguete City Engineering Office intervened with a stop-work order, but the breach of trust was already complete.
This isn’t a mere oversight—it’s a pattern. The elder Sagarbarria, widely regarded as the political patriarch steering his son’s administration, deflects criticism by pointing to nearby properties that skirt similar rules. The defense doesn’t hold: Each site falls under its own zoning classification, and none share the hospital’s restricted IN-2 status. This isn’t confusion; it’s evasion.
Compounding the irony is Councilor Joe Kenneth Arbas, the family’s spokesperson and a lawyer who co-authored Ordinance No. 104 in 2016, refining the 2013 zoning limits now being ignored. His public defense of the project isn’t just inconsistent—it’s a renunciation of the standards he once helped set. When those who craft the law discard it so readily, accountability becomes a mirage.
The Sagarbarria dynasty’s conduct reveals a stark conviction: Laws bind the governed, not the governing. Ordinary Filipinos face penalties for minor permit lapses, while a powerful family proceeds unhindered, treating public office as a personal fiefdom. This isn’t leadership—it’s privilege unchecked.
Dumaguete’s residents deserve better. They deserve leaders who uphold the rules they establish, not exploit them. If the Zoning Ordinance of 2013 mattered when it was enacted, it must matter now. To tolerate less is to cede the rule of law to the caprice of the connected. The hospital, intended to serve, has instead laid bare a deeper affliction—one only accountability can cure.
