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By Ronnie E. Calumpita, Correspondent
(First of 2 parts)
The land title of the University of the
Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City, is being questioned anew as the
House of Representatives has started its investigation into the
alleged anomalous land titling of the 493-hectare property of the
state university.
Among those who are disputing the vast land of
UP are the heirs of Crisanto Pael, who claim that UP managed to take
away from them some 78 hectares of land–Lot 588-A with an area of
518,455 square meters and Lot 588-B with an area of 261,022 square
meters.
Divino Velasquez, the representative of the
Paels, said the inquiry at the Committee on Justice, chaired by Rep.
Marcelino Libanan of Eastern Samar, has given them new hope to
recover their property.
“The Paels have been deprived of their land
for so many years now. Even the [Supreme Court] refused to intervene
in the land dispute case pending before the Court of Appeals to once
and for all settle the dispute,” he said.
The Paels allegedly lost their vast property
after the Commonwealth Government executed a Deed of Sale in favor
of UP that extended its education system in Diliman on March 1,
1949.
Velasquez said UP originally had two parcels of
land, Lot 40 and Lot 41, covering a total area of 43 hectares under
Transfer Certificate of Title (TCT) 36048, the same number bearing
the land title of the Paels. The land area of UP in Diliman has
increased over the years to 493 hectares.
Under the Land Registration Act (LRA) 496, there
can be no two titles bearing the same title number, because they
distinguish one from the other. Therefore, one of the two titles,
either UP’s or the Paels’, is fake.
Comparison
The TCT 36048, from which UP derives its current
reconstituted titles, and the TCT 36048 of the Paels have many
similarities and differences.
The most notable difference is the date of the
Original Registration of the title of the two land titles, which
bear the same number. The Paels’ TCT 36048 was registered on May
5, 1914, a Tuesday; that of UP, May 3, 1914, a Sunday.
A check with the 1914 calendar shows that May 3,
1914, was indeed a Sunday.
Velasquez said an attempt should have been made
somewhere to antedate the title issued to the Commonwealth
Government, from which UP’s original title (TCT 36048) derives.
This is to show that the earlier registration is superior to the
other.
“UP also cannot register a title on Sunday as
stated in its title (TCT 36048), since Sunday was a nonworking day
(on May 3, 1914). This [Sunday registration] also violates Land
Registration Act 496, which says that [the Registry of Deeds] shall
be opened except on Sundays and holidays in the entire
archipelago,” Velasquez pointed out.
In the deed of sale made by President Elpidio
Quirino in favor of UP, the subject parcel of lands was owned by the
Commonwealth Government, making them public lands. But the Original
Certificate of Title 730, from which UP derives its TCT 36048, was
under the name of one Severo Tuazon y de la Paz, a private person
who already owned the property in 1914.
Velasquez noted that considering that it was
private property, the parcels of land should have been expropriated
by the government through Presidential Proclamation, and not through
a deed of sale as mandated by LRA 496.
Other claimants
Besides the Paels, Renato Mallari and George
Chin are also engaged in a tug of war with UP. The two claim the
state university’s property overlaps theirs.
The issue is pending before the Court of
Appeals, to which the Supreme Court remanded the case and granted
the motion for intervention of UP, but not the Paels’ motion to
reconsider the High Court’s earlier decision dismissing their
appeal to remand the case to the Quezon City Regional Trial Court so
that they could present their evidence there.
Velasquez said the Supreme Court recognizes the
TCT 52928 and TCT 52929 of Mallari and Chin as not spurious, as
claimed by another claimant, Maria Destura, who filed an annulment
of the title against the two in Branch 96 of the Quezon City
Regional Trial Court, where the land dispute case originated.
The lower court ruled in favor neither of
Destura nor of Mallari and Chin. It reinstated the title of Pael (TCT
36048) from which the two titles of Mallari and Chin derive
following an alleged faked deed of sale they executed from Luis
Menor, a long-time caretaker of the Paels’ property, Velasquez
noted.
This prompted Mallari and Chin to bring the case
to the Court of Appeals and Destura to seek the intervention of the
Supreme Court. The Paels and UP also entered the picture in the
Supreme Court.
Besides their land dispute problem with UP,
Velasquez said the woes of the Paels over their property with other
claimants began when Menor took control of their property after
Crisanto died on July 26, 1980. Menor allegedly has the copy of the
owner’s duplicate copy of the land title.
The heirs of Crisanto did not know that Menor
had already sold 70 percent of their property to Mallari for P150
million using an alleged fake deed of sale supposedly made between
Crisanto and Menor in 1978.
Mallari and Chin also acquired the remaining 30
percent of the property through an alleged fabricated deed of sale
supposedly executed with them by Crisanto, his brother Roberto and
sister Teofila on December 10, 1978.
Velasquez said Mallari failed to pay Menor P149
million after paying an initial payment of P1 million as reservation
fee. This prompted Menor to sell the property to Abdulraof Dimaporo.
Mallari, however, was able to register the
property on January 24, 1992, under their names (two titles-TCTs
52928 and 52929) even before Menor and Dimaporo could close a deal
on June 8, 2003. Dimaporo then had allegedly sold the rights to
several others, mostly to Muslims, resulting in the intrusion of
squatters into the compound of the National Hydraulic Center, a
property of UP. The squatters were evicted last month by UP.
Even before Menor and Mallari and Chin met and
forged a deal, the two had already signed an agreement with another
claimants, spouses Pedro and Maria Destura, who allegedly fabricated
a deed of sale with Lutgarda Marilao on May 22, 1979, in Manila,
Velasquez said.
The transaction happened after the Desturas
learned that Marilao had been given by Crisanto an exclusive power
of attorney to sign in his behalf in selling his land in the Tala
Estate in Caloocan City, with an area of 24.9562 hectares, and all
properties in Barrio Culiat on September 19, 1970, in the name of
his father Antonio.
Pedro executed at least two authorities to sell
in favor of Mallari and Chin on September 13, 1990, and February 19,
1991. No part of the property, however, was sold, so Pedro executed
a deed of conditional sale in favor of Chin in April 1991, but the
sale could not be declared valid, because Pedro did not comply with
the conditions.
Pedro then spent sometime in Canada, where he
learned that his alleged property had been transferred into the
names of Mallari and Chin under TCT 52928 and TCT 52929 in 1992
following the two’s meeting with Menor.
To settle the dispute with Mallari and Chin,
Pedro executed a memorandum of agreement with them on March 26,
1992, but Maria Destura opposed the agreement, saying she did not
sign to signify her conformity. She later filed a case before the
Quezon City Regional Trial Court.
Alleged fabrication of documents:
Besides from alleged fake land titles, Velasquez
said several documents had also been falsified. Among them, he
alleged, was the deed of sale made by Crisanto and Menor dated June
30, 1978, and the other one that the two allegedly made on July 24,
1978.
A certification from the Office of the Clerk of
Court of Pasay City proved that the June 30, 1978, deed of sale
notarized by a lawyer, Julian Tubig, involving P60,000 was
fabricated.
The certification, dated March 27, 2003, and
signed by Pepito Celestino, clerk of court VI, showed that Tubig did
not notarize a deed of sale entered in Docket No. 58, Page No. 12,
Book No. LXXXII and Series of 1978 covering a period of June 1978.
According to his submitted notarial reports for
that month, Tubig notarized on June 5, 1978, only a “conditional
sale” of a refrigerator executed between one Felixberto Barbosa
and the Sandigan Marketing, represented by one Jose Montalvo.
The only difference of this deed of sale from
that of the “Deed of Absolute Sale of Real Property” allegedly
made by Crisanto and Menor is the book entry notarized by Tubig on
June 5, 1978, (deed of sale of a refrigerator) was recorded in Book
LXXXI.
The signature of Simplicia Abagao-Pael, wife of
Crisanto, appeared in the deed of sale when the truth is she was an
illiterate and could only use her thumb mark on any documents that
needed her signature.
A residence certificate dated January 4, 1980,
of Simplicia, who died in the same year, showed she did not know how
to sign, because she only affixed her thumb mark to the document.
The July 24, 1978, deed of sale, also notarized
by Tubig also in Pasay City and allegedly made by Crisanto, his
brother Roberto, sister Teofila and Menor, is studded with
irregularities, Velasquez said.
Records show that Tubig did not notarize a deed
of sale of a real property on July 24, 1978, supposed to have been
entered in Docket No. 481, Page No. 97, Book No. LXXXII, Series of
1978.
But he did notarize a deed of sale of a car on
June 26, 1978, bearing Docket No. 481, Page No. 97, Book No. LXXXI,
which is the only difference with that of the alleged fake July 24,
1978, deed of sale, Series of 1978. Velasquez claimed Tubig had
admitted in his sworn affidavit that he notarized falsified
documents in consideration of a parcel of land in Diliman.
(To be continued)
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