Godfrey S. Mendiola said he will also extend the scheduled closure of his property.
“It is important to delay the closure to allow the community to celebrate fiesta on October without hampering their activities,” he told Variety yesterday.
The Mendiola heirs are demanding compensation for their ancestral property that the government took and leased to Rota Resort without their consent and approval.
Mendiola said he will donate one-half of his shares to the San Francisco de Borja Church and the rest to the Santiago Atalig Foundation’s scholarship program.
He said he has already informed Frank Calvo, Rota Parish Council president, about his donation to the church.
Mendiola is son of Santiago A. Mendiola, one of the biggest landowners on Rota.
He said their family is now considering removing the administrator of their property.
The administrator, he added, has done nothing to reclaim the 40-hectare property which the government exchanged with another lot.
Godfrey S. Mendiola said his family is now filing a petition to the court to appoint him as the new administrator of their claim.
He said they are against the exchange of the Agusan/Swimming Hole property without a just appraisal and fair compensation, “including the compensation for punitive damages, back pay, interests, mental anguish and, most of all, economic loss.”
He added, “We are no longer interested in our share — we give more importance to the legacy of our father.”
His father, he said, worked as a spy on Rota for the American forces during World War II, and was able to “strategically identify Japanese defense positions for bombing target.”
Godfrey S. Mendiola said his father sacrificed his life to gain the freedom of Rota’s people and it “is just reasonable that we can regain and return that legacy back to him.”
However, he added, the government took “it away from our father.”
The government, he said, should now compensate the Mendiola heirs.
It has been “many years that we have been demanding for just compensation but they never listen to our demand,” he added.
