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A month after the flood management scandal broke out within the Philippines in August of 2025, Claveria, Cagayan Mayor Lucille Angelus “LA” Guillen – whose firm additionally received authorities flood management tasks – transferred her $1.2-million home in Las Vegas, Nevada to a US-based home firm which she additionally owns.
The Guillens are a political dynasty of Piddig, Ilocos Norte, and allies of the Marcoses.
Nevada native assessors’ data present that Mayor LA Guillen, the daughter of Nationwide Irrigation (NIA) Administrator Eddie Guillen, purchased the five-bedroom, five-bathroom property in October 2017 for $1.265 million, or P63.76 million in accordance with the typical alternate charge in 2017. Guillen then transferred the property to Southern Highland Restricted LLC for free of charge on September 21, 2025, a month after the Philippine authorities launched an all-out investigation into anomalous flood management and different infrastructure tasks.
Guillen additionally owns the LLC or Restricted Legal responsibility Firm, in accordance with each the deed of the grant, and enterprise data from Nevada. One other managing member of the LLC is Guillen’s uncle, one of many brothers of her mom Piddig, Ilocos Norte Mayor Georgina Salazar Guillen. The whole property is 5,266 sq. ft, with 5 bedrooms, 5 loos, and a pool, in accordance with entries on actual property property pages.
Transferring a property to a home LLC is usually finished to protect that asset from potential dangers. It’s a company layer meant to guard private property ought to that property be entangled in liabilities.
The Salazar-Guillen clan is an enormous politicontractor, or public officers who additionally personal firms that contract with authorities. For his or her clan, there are not less than 4 development firms owned by a number of members, certainly one of them owned by Mayor LA Guillen herself. For flood management tasks alone, these 4 firms have received not less than a billion price of contracts from the Division of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), in accordance with datasets by the civil society-run Bettergov, or a mirror web site of the Philippine Authorities Digital Procurement System (Philgeps).
The property was not declared within the 2023 and 2025 Statements of Property, Liabilities and Web Price (SALNs) of Mayor LA Guillen, which she collectively filed with husband, Councilor Dexter Yapo. Their SALNS, which Rappler obtained from the Workplace of the Ombudsman, solely record two actual properties in Ilocos Norte and 5 enterprise pursuits, together with the 2 development firms that contract with authorities.
Part 8(A) of the Code of Conduct for Public Officers or Republic Act (RA) 6713 requires public officers to declare all their properties of their SALN. We requested Mayor LA Guillen why the Las Vegas property was not declared, in addition to her supply of funds when she purchased it in 2017, however we’ve got not obtained a solution even after observe up from January 23 to February 9, each to her workplace on the Claveria Municipal Corridor and the workplace of the family-owned development firm Skyline. Rappler has talked to personnel of each places of work by telephone, all of whom couldn’t give us a particular reply on once we might anticipate a response.
Who’re the Salazars and Guillens?
The Salazars have dominated Piddig, Ilocos Norte since 2002, ranging from Mayor Georgina Guillen’s father, Augustus A. Salazar, who was mayor from 2002 to 2010. After 2010, NIA chief Eddie Guillen and spouse Mayor Georgina Guillen have simply been swapping phrases.
In 2009, the household was sued for corruption over allegations of rigged bidding, ghost workers, and even nepotism. On the time, Mayor LA Guillen was working as an administrative aide to his grandfather on the Piddig Municipal Corridor, giving rise to the allegation of nepotism. The remainder of the lawsuit accused the patriarch Salazar of conniving with the Guillen couple, personal residents on the time, of rigging the procurement of medicines for the agricultural well being unit. They had been additionally accused of utilizing native authorities funds to pay municipal workers when allegedly, they had been private workers of Mayor Georgina Gullen and different family.
All of those complaints had been dismissed by the Workplace of the Ombudsman in 2012, in accordance with a decision obtained by Rappler.
In newer years, the Salazars and the Guillens have been vocal allies of the Marcoses in Ilocos Norte. In December 2022, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. appointed Eddie Guillen as chief of NIA. Rappler has beforehand reported that NIA has awarded contracts to 2 firms owned by Guillen’s family. Guillen’s workplace on the time justified that the administrator performed no function within the procurements which had been finished by regional places of work.
General, the clan has seven members in public places of work, sharing 4 firms amongst which have received contracts within the municipalities they’re serving. The Guillen household owns Skyline Building Gear and Improvement Company; Councilor Dexter Yapo owns Dylan Gear, Building and Provides; Vice Mayor Edwin Salazar’s spouse owns North Tech Builders and Building Provide; and Vice Mayor Salazar’s son, Councilor John Patrick Salazar, owns Strong North Building.
The Guillen household has beforehand advised Rappler that there isn’t any battle of curiosity of their contracts. There aren’t any recognized investigations into the clan thus far.
(See Rappler’s Politicontractor maps: click on this hyperlink for flood management, and this hyperlink for all DPWH tasks)
Mixing public workplace and enterprise
On February 20, 2023, Mayor LA Guillen posted on Fb a gathering of a few of her family of their capacities as public officers, with the president’s son Ilocos Norte First District Consultant Sandro Marcos.
Seen within the picture are Mayor LA Guillen, her mom Mayor Georgina Guillen, her father Administrator Eddie Guillen, and her husband Councilor Dexter Yapo. Her publish stated that she and her mom, each native chief executives, “took the chance to current and focus on their requests for varied tasks and applications that might be of nice assist to their townspeople.”
If this assembly occurred in February 2023, any end result could be mirrored within the 2024 nationwide finances. Resigned congressman Zaldy Co has alleged that Sandro Marcos made insertions to DPWH line gadgets within the 2023, 2024 and 2025 nationwide budgets, and posted these supposed insertion lists, which Sandro has denied.
We cross-matched the 2024 insertion record and the awarded DPWH tasks not less than in Piddig, Ilocos Norte. In Piddig alone, three of the Salazar-Guillen development firms received seven tasks price a complete P82.48 million, sourced allegedly from Sandro Marcos’ insertions.
This assembly was a part of our record of inquiries to Mayor LA Guillen, which she has not responded to.
Final December, Sandro Marcos accepted an invite by the ad-hoc fee, the Impartial Fee for Infrastucture, however his session was stored secret from the general public. Sandro stated he deferred to the ICI to publicize the session, however the ICI stated Sandro declared below oath that the video shouldn’t be publicized.
There’s additionally been no recognized investigation into Sandro Marcos. One other beneficiary of his alleged insertions is the corporate of President Marcos’ shut aide, Justice Undersecretary Jojo Cadiz, who’s additionally from Ilocos Norte. Cadiz has reported again to work, regardless of Malacañang saying his resignation after Rappler uncovered his contractor hyperlinks. – with analysis from Vicensa Nonato/Rappler.com
Vicensa Nonato is a Rappler intern. She is a 3rd yr journalism scholar on the College of the Philippines Diliman.
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