TACLOBAN CITY – The regional representative of the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) said that there is no stopping from using the sequestered People’s Center and Library into a venue of a “baratillo”.

In doing so, Renoir Dauag told Leyte Samar Daily Express, there office cold be assured of an income which he claimed would be used for the maintenance of the building.

Since Monday, the imposing building was again the site of a “baratillo” or trade fair, managed by Rodolfo Letaba of the Unitrex Trade Exhibitor. The trade fair would end on January 15 next year.

During her visit in the building last October, former first lady Imelda Marcos, elder sister of Mayor Alfredo “Bejo” Romualdez, in an emotional outburst, decried the use of the People’s Center and Library into a “market”.

The former first lady also claimed that the books at the library, located at the second floor of the building, were being used as wrappers.

But Dauag told Express that the use of the building as trade fair center is one of their main sources of income.

“We use the money derived in lea sing out the building to trade exhibitors for the maintenance of the building,” he said.

It was learned from Dauag that his office charges P25, 000 a day for the use of the People’s Center and Library.

For this particular use of the building that would last for three months, the PCGG is to earn P1.950 million.

Dauag also said that the use of the building as a trade fair center was legal as there was already a court decision allowing for a trade exhibit or for a similar purpose be held in the said building.

He was referring to a court decision issued two years ago by a Catbalogan-based Regional Trial Court that rejected the petition of Mayor Romualdez requesting to disallow Letaba from holding a trade fair in the building.

For a couple of years now, Letaba has been staging a “baratillo” at the People’s Center and Library.

Romualdez himself had decried the use of the building as a “baratillo” site, saying that the building, constructed by her elder sister Imelda Marcos, was meant for socio-cultural activities.

The building, together with other properties owned by the Marcoses, was placed under sequestration by the national government on suspicion that they were derived from ill-gotten wealth of the family.

Imelda, however, said that the property belongs to her family.