By Joel M. Sy Egco

Neither Libis nor Ugong Norte but Bagumbayan?or so its chairman declares?is where Eastwood City belongs.

Quezon City council majority leader Ariel Inton says boundary questions are not only confined in the North Triangle area, where several barangays want to possess two crown jewels?SM City and Triangle North of Manila mall.

?Eastwood City was also being claimed by Bagumbayan and Ugong Norte. We [at] the council resolved that a plebiscite be done to settle the dispute. However, Mayor [Feliciano] Belmonte [Jr.] vetoed the resolution and Bagumbayan won,? Inton told Standard Today.

Dr. Elmer Maturan, Bagumbayan chairman, said Belmonte found a plebiscite superfluous because ordinances already recognized Eastwood City enclosed in Bagumbayan.

?Ugong Norte made its claim but in the end, the law prevailed. It was a done deal [as of] last October,? Maturan said in a separate interview.

Bagumbayan posted the highest real property tax earning at nearly P19 million largely on Eastwood tax payments.

Maturan said Ugong Norte was insisting that it encompassed Eastwood which was inside an area along Kalye Industriya up to Concrete Aggregate Corp.

?We did not agree and as Mayor Belmonte ruled, there are laws that state that area belongs to Bagumbayan not even Libis,? he said, noting that it was another village.

Likewise, Maturan has told locators to drop ?Libis? when mentioning Eastwood City, and putting ?Barangay Bagumbayan? in their official address.

?Many have complied. Still others used Libis in their advertisements and we immediately sent reminders to them to use Bagumbayan,? said Maturan, who also heads the City Development Council committee on infrastructure, land use and zoning.

?If they fail to do that, they will not be issued business permits.?