Posted on Tuesday, July 15, 2003

Private land claimants prey
on local govt of Los Baños

By David L. Llorito, Research Head

Second of 5 Parts

LOS BAÑOS, LAGUNA–Timu­gan barangay captain Florencio Bautista is incredulous: “Imagine, ako’y lehi­timong taga-rito; nan­diyan na yung BPI nung ipi­ninganak ako. Tapos biglang sumulpot ’yung Teresita Teopen ’yun at sasabihin kanya ito?”

Bautista could only shake his head. But the same question is boggling Caesar P. Perez, town mayor of Los Baños, as well as the residents of Barangay Timugan who are also battling outsiders trying to evict them from the lands where their houses are standing.

“Even the municipal government has become a victim here,” said Perez. “It’s so unfair because these people are not even from Los Baños.”

Los Baños under siege

Early this year, President Arroyo was supposed to proclaim the “Rest Area,” a three-hectare parcel that is part of the 242-hectare Camp Eldridge military reservation to be used as the site of a new municipal building of the municipality of Los Baños as well as a one-stop-shop center for science research.

The proclamation, however, had to be canceled because suddenly a certain Pablo Babasanta from Santa Rosa showed up at the municipal assessor’s office to pay for tax declarations for the same site. It meant the residents also had to forgo their development programs.

“Nalaman na lang naming may titulo na pala ’yung Rest Area sa isang private individual,” said Perez.

“Nagulat na lang kami dahil we were working with the DENR to have the area declared for the new municipal building as well as the one-stop-shop science and technology center,” added Rafael D. Lapastora, the municipal development and planning officer of Los Baños. “It is among our major programs as a science and nature city.”

The contested parcel is called “Rest Area” because it once served as a makeshift stopover terminal for buses plying the Manila-Lucena-Bicol route before the construction of the national highway passing through Santo Tomas and Alaminos in Batangas.

Bus drivers and passengers liked the place because it lay at the foot of Mount Makiling and is covered with huge trees, providing a cool shade to weary travelers.

Today, the Rest Area is prime real estate lying beside the national highway going to either fast-growing San Pablo City or Santa Cruz, the provincial capital.

It is just a few kilometers to institutions like the BPI research station, PCARRD, PCMARRD, DOST to the University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB), International Rice Research Institute. Located near the Dampalit Falls and many resorts that have been sprouting since the mid-90s in Los Baños, the Rest Area is used occasionally by some residents as picnic grounds during weekends.

‘Squatters’ threatened by squatters

In a sense, the occupants of the six-hectare land beside the BPI crop research station stretching from the national highway going up to the vicinity of the PCMARRD are themselves “squatters,” many of them employees of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources. (In fact, the place is jokingly called “DENR Avenue.”)

Warlito de la Cruz, agribusiness consultant and son of one of the original residents in that six-hectare stretch of land going through the Boy Scout Jamboree Site at UPLB, says that the early occupants of the area were former employees of the BPI from Maligaya, Nueva Ecija, that were displaced by the Huk rebellion about fifty years ago.

“The Huks attacked the BPI research station in Maligaya and killed the station chief,” recalled de la Cruz, who is now in his late 50s. “As a result, the BPI dispersed the employees in Maligaya to various stations in the country. One of those employees was my father.

“They were made to choose between the Economic Garden and some other BPI stations. My father chose the Economic Garden because it is close to UPLB. That is why we settled here.”

In 1959, however, the Philippines hosted the 10th World Jamboree on the UPLB campus. Planners of the event expected the onrush of thousands of foreign delegates to create traffic jams at the gate of the campus. Thus the government built an alternate road starting from the national highway in Barangay Timugan slicing through eastern part of the Economic Garden up to the Jamboree site.

“Dahil sa kalsada, nahiwalay kami sa BPI,” recalled de la Cruz. “The BPI later fenced us off the Economic Garden.”

“Diyan na nag-umpisa ’yung pagpasok ng mga politiko; eventually the area also drew migrants from all over the province as well as from Quezon and Bicol,” said de la Cruz.

What was once an open area for planting crops like sorghum and corn became a settlement for people coming from Laguna, Quezon and Bicol.

De la Cruz said many of those who got choice lots in the area were plain speculators, who eventually sold off their rights for a hefty profit.

“Kung sino ’yung matatapang pasok lang dito; pagtapos ibenenta ’yung mga rights,” he said.

Many of those who got choice lots are DENR people, including Antonio Principe, former director of DENR Region IV.

The irony, de la Cruz said, is that those newcomers ended up having large plots. Some of them obtained “titles” for their “properties” during the term of Director of Lands Braulio Darum. Sources said even without proper land surveys, Darum distributed titles left and right.

In the eighties Darum was convicted of graft and corruption for issuing free patents for areas in Los Baños that were privately owned.

Some of those who got titles or free patents are Datu Dionisio Linaw and Tomas C. Tolibas.

According to Marcelo Alcachupas, Los Baños municipal assessor, Linaw got several free patents (Nos. 16740, 16741, 16742; and Free Patents Nos. 16704 and 16707) with a total area of about 20 hectares in Barangay Lalakay, extending to parts of the 3.7-hectare Rest Area that is being considered the site of the new municipal hall as well as the One-Stop Shop Science and Technology Center. The free patents were signed by District Land Officer Braulio Darum.

The 3.7-hectare Rest Area is the same site that is now being claimed by Babasanta as his own through title T-496977.

Babasanta’s claim also covers parts of the sprawling compound that is occupied by the district office of the Department of Public Works and Highways. Babasanta’s title was signed by Registrar of Deeds Vicente A. Garcia, based in Calamba.

Among the former employees of the defunct Bureau of Lands (which later became Land Management Bureau under the DENR), Linaw got his titles because of his closeness to former President Ferdinand E. Marcos for supplying him with talismans (anting-anting).

Tolibas himself obtained free patents for a portion of UPLB’s 3-hectare Limnological Research Station in Mayondon as well as some portion of BPI’s Economic Garden.

De la Cruz stressed that these titles are spurious, because Republic Act 274 says military reservations can be titled only through presidential proclamation.

Nevertheless, despite a spurious title, Tolibas engaged the UPLB in a bruising legal tussle that lasted 20 years before his title was nullified by the Supreme Court.

Linaw has long been dead and forgotten, but his ghost in the person of Cesar E. Lopez came to haunt the Timugan residents. Apparently, Linaw also got titles for about 6 hectares of land facing PCARRD and the BPI.

Alcachupas said the same title (T-202230) ended up in the hands of a certain Cesar Lopez, who now claims the five-hectare area occupied by former BPI employees, DENR staff and migrants from Laguna, Quezon and Bicol.

According to former Timugan barangay captain Eddie Maligalig, Lopez recently sent demand letters to all the residents informing them of his ownership of the area. The letter contained a form for the residents to fill and sign, indicating that they recognize Lopez’s ownership of the land and that they are willing to pay for it at the right price.

Maligalig’s father, a former employee of the Department of Agriculture in Santa Cruz, was among the first occupants of the eastern portion of the Economic Garden.

“Yung mga ayaw day pumirma ay binibigyan ng 15 days para umalis,” said Maligalig. “Kung hindi, sa husgado na raw kami magkikita.”

Threats to government projects

Los Baños Mayor Perez questions the authenticity of Babasanta’s title because, according to him, the contested area is covered by the “custodial and management right (CMR)” granted to the municipality of Los Baños on March 2, 1999, by the government through the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR).

Perez said even before the grant of the CMR, the municipal government has been occupying, developing and maintaining the area as a park. The municipality has been paying for lighting, water supply, and has provided toilets and other facilities.

He also told The Times that the municipality is already using some portion of the Rest Area for goat breeding and production and other livelihood activities for poor Los Baños residents.

He said that if this land conflict is not resolved, all the development projects “for the welfare of the people of Los Baños including the One-Stop Shop for Science and Technology, a new health center, and the PNP-Los Baños headquarters will come to naught.

Representative Joaquin Chipeco has pledged to provide P4.5 million and the Office of the President has contributed another million as start-up funds for the livelihood projects.

Francisco R. Manipon, head of the local BPI research station in the area, says that losing the land to Teresita Teope would mean that the country has to say goodbye to a strategic crop research center that is generating technologies for lowland vegetables, producing quality seeds and planting materials for nationwide distribution.

Since 1955 the center has produced 59 varieties that were approved by the National Seed Industry Council for commercial production. These include varieties in mungbean, soybean, corn, sorghum, peanuts, tomato, pole sitao, cowpea, Chinese cabbage, eggplant, bush sitao, okra, Bangkok santol and sweet potato.

Through the center, the government undertakes collaborative research projects with international institutions in high-value crops, peri-urban production systems, bio-intensive gardening, among many others.

Patricio S. Failon, executive director of PCARRD, says that if Teope succeeds in evicting them from the Economic Garden through her petition for injunction, the cost to the government would be tremendous.

He explained that PCARRD is the government’s central body in planning, coordinating, evaluating, and monitoring the national research and development (R&D) program. His office handles about P250 million worth of R&D programs and projects nationwide each year. Teope’s case therefore has become a distraction.

“And what if they succeed in getting even just a TRO [temporary restraining order]?” says a PCARRD technical staffer now assigned to gather all the documents they need for the court case filed by Teope. “What will happen to our R&D programs?”

Failon, who speaks for government agencies affected by Teope’s landownership claims, says the 30-hectare compound also hosts the Department of Science and Technology-Region IV and the Philippine Council for Aquatic and Marine Research and Development (PCAMRD).

DOST-IV coordinates S&T efforts in Southern Tagalog and PCAMRD directs the government R&D activities in aquatic and marine research all over the country.

“The land claim issue involves public interest and welfare, and jeopardizes international commitments because agencies occupying the disputed land are mandated to ensure that S&T in agriculture and natural resources are translated into scientific and technological advances toward the country’s global competitiveness,” said PCARRD in a press statement.

To be continued