Las Piñas councilor challenges Cynthia Villar

A LAS PIÑAS councilor will go up against Sen. Cynthia Villar for the city's lone congressional seat in next year's midterm elections. Incumbent Las Piñas District 1 councilor Mark Anthony Santos has announced that he is ready to face Senator Villar, who will end her term on June 30, 2025. Santos, who once served as chief of staff of the late Las Piñas Mayor Vergel Aguilar, brother of Senator Villar, is currently serving his seventh term and was elected minority leader. A known advocate of socialized housing and in-city relocation, he is the main author of a resolution allocating a P85 million budget for land acquisition for informal settlers. Santos is the author of the 2023 council resolution that sought to collect delinquent real property taxes amounting to P213.55 million from the five companies owned or managed by the Villar. Santos said the Villar group of companies still owes the city government around P70 million in taxes and penalties. Sought for comment, Senator Villar said the issue "involves purely corporate concerns, which does not involve my function as a senator." Also, the Villars noted numerous errors in the assessment of the market value of the real property under Brittany Corp. But Senator Villar gave the assurance that they were more than willing to settle their obligations. They said that their legal counsel wrote a letter to the local government, but they have yet to receive any answer, saying they were advised by their lawyers not to pay until an answer is received "because paying it is an admission that the assessment is correct." Villar served as representative of Las Piñas after being elected in 2001. She completed three terms (nine years) of service. In the 2013 midterm elections, Villar ran and won as senator. In the 2019 national elections, Villar was reelected as senator. Villar's husband, Manny, was a former Senate president. Their son Mark serves as senator, and their daughter Camille is the incumbent Las Piñas representative.