Alicia Filipenses
| Alicia Filipenses | |
 | |
 Who's Who of Nouvelle Alexandrie | |
|---|---|
| Full Name | Alicia Filipenses |
| Titles & Offices | Mayor of Hato Rey (1734 AN-1739 AN) |
| Birth Date | 3.V.1694 AN |
| Birth Place |
  Hato Rey, Boriquén |
| Spouse | Rafael Ocampo |
| Children | Two |
| Education | Public administration |
| Alma Mater | University of Boriquén |
| Occupation | Politician |
| Political Affiliation | Wakara People's Party |
| Organizations | Wakara People's Party |
| Known For | Mayor of Hato Rey; the Muelle Dorado scandal |
| Residence | Hato Rey, Boriquén |
| National Origin |
Boriquén |
| Citizenship(s) |
Nouvelle Alexandrie |
Alicia Filipenses (born 3.V.1694 AN) is a former New Alexandrian politician who was Mayor of Hato Rey, the capital of Boriquén, from 1734 AN to 1739 AN. She belonged to the Wakara People's Party (WPP), which had traditionally held the city, and took the mayoralty from the Federal Humanist Party incumbent Ignacio Pérez de San Quintín at the 1734 AN election.[1] Her single term ended in the Muelle Dorado scandal, a corruption case over a stalled waterfront development that cost her re-election in 1739 AN and led to her conviction.
Early life and career
Filipenses was born in Hato Rey into the city's Wakara majority and spent her early career in municipal administration. She rose through the WPP's ward organizations, the machinery through which the party ran Boriquén and its capital, and by the early 1730 ANs she sat among its senior figures in the cacicazgo of Hato Rey.
Mayor of Hato Rey
At the 1734 AN election Filipenses took the mayoralty back for the WPP, beating San Quintín on a promise to steady the city and spend on its harbor. His single term as the city's first Federal Humanist mayor had been marked by open conflict with the WPP-controlled Municipal Council, most visibly the 1732 council fracas over a contested waterfront scheme.[2] In office she staked her administration on the Muelle Dorado ("Golden Wharf"), a redevelopment of the harbor front at Hato Rey del Cherusken. The plan called for cruise berths and a lakeside promenade, with blocks of luxury housing set behind them, and Filipenses sold it as the project that would make Hato Rey the first port of the Keltian coast.
Muelle Dorado scandal
The concession went out in 1735 AN with no competitive tender, to a consortium called Cherusken Coastal Holdings, passing over Constructora de Hato Rey, the largest construction firm in Boriquén.[3] What the auditors later found was that the consortium answered to the mayor. A brother-in-law and two business associates held its shares as nominees, and the profits from a contract Filipenses had signed ran back to her own circle. The city sold prime waterfront land to the consortium well under its valuation and pledged municipal revenue against the consortium's borrowing. It also paid for work that was never done, the money returning through padded subcontracts and consulting fees. When the city comptroller pressed questions about the accounts, he was removed from his post, and the council minutes recording the concession vote were doctored to blur who had backed it.
The works on the lakefront stalled. Foundations were poured and then left, the site fenced off and idle as the budget drained. The scandal broke in 1738 AN, when a municipal auditor handed a Hato Rey television station a dossier of the contracts and the altered minutes. The station ran it across several nights.[4] Viewers were shown who really owned Cherusken Coastal Holdings, what the public land had sold for, and invoices for construction that had never happened.
Downfall and aftermath
After the broadcast, the WPP moved to separate itself from the mayor. It expelled Filipenses and put up George Navarro as a clean-government candidate for the 1739 AN election, which she lost by a wide margin, leaving office that year to Navarro.[1] Prosecutors then charged her with fraud, bribery, and falsifying public records. She was convicted in 1740 AN and barred from public office. She did not return to politics.
The affair outlived her career in Boriquén, where the phrase un Muelle Dorado came to describe a public works project that serves the firms building it rather than the public paying for it.
Personal life
Filipenses married Rafael Ocampo and had two children. She studied public administration at the University of Boriquén and spent her working life in Hato Rey, where she remained after leaving office. She gave no public account of the Muelle Dorado affair beyond her denials at the time.
