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By David L. Llorito, Research Head
3rd of 5 Parts
LOS BAÑOS, LAGUNA–Teresita T. Teope has three
firm demands.
First, the four science and technology
agencies–PCARRD, PCAMRD, DOST-Region 4 and the BPI–should
“stop encroaching” on her “property.” Second, they should
pay her at least P2 million in “rent” and attorney’s fees. And
third, they should “peacefully surrender” to her the 30-hectare
land that government agencies have been occupying since the
Commonwealth period.
Officials of these four S&T agencies are
baffled by her claims because since the American period, they knew
the land being claimed by Teope “has been a long-recognized public
property.”
But what they find unnerving is Teope’s
belligerent strategy to get the 30-hectare land. Until now they
don’t have a clear idea who she really is or whom they are dealing
with.
Most of them have not even seen her face.
The Bureau of Plant Industry security guard,
Edwin Aragones, recalled that when Teope’s group broke through the
BPI compound on April 7, 2003, she sent only two of her companions
to talk to him. And her people would not even identify themselves.
“Si Teope nandun lang talaga sa loob ng van,” he told The Manila
Times.
When the barangay captain, Florencio D.
Bautista, asked Teope to explain to him why they broke into the BPI
compound, her companions told him that Teope would only talk to him
inside the van, where she stayed since arriving at the BPI compound
lunch time.
Bautista felt insulted. “Sila na nga itong
basta na lamang pumasok diyan at hindi nag-coordinate sa akin, tapos
ako pa ang dapat lalapit sa kanya.”
Instead, Bautista invited Teope’s group to
discuss her claim at the barangay hall about a hundred meters away.
Teope’s van followed Bautista into the barangay hall but she did
not get off the van. She only sent her companions to talk to the
barangay captain.
“Talagang hindi nagpakita ng mukha,”
Bautista said.
Teope’s group had no court orders or papers to
show for the legality of their action, so Bautista required them to
return the next day, when Teope and officials of S&T agencies
could discuss the land conflict in his office face to face.
“Teope did not show up,” said Bautista.
Asked by The Times for interviews, most of the
sources from government agencies were reluctant to talk. Those who
talked did not like the conversations taped or to be quoted.
“Mahirap na, …We are dealing with a very
influential and powerful group of people here,” said an official
from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.
“Our initial information shows that Teope
doesn’t act on her own unless she has some powerful backers,”
said a government official.
Asked who these influential people are, the
sources would rather not speculate. But they pointed out that she is
being supported by the Quezon City-based Valdez Maulit and
Aportadera Law Office, owned by former top government officials.
Among its legal luminaries is Simeon Valdez, a
former congressman and, according to Teope’s lawyer, Mamyrlito
Tan, an uncle of former President Fidel Valdez Ramos. Maulit is
actually Reynaldo Maulit, former administrator of the Land
Registration Authority, the repository of all copies of land titles
and land-related documents nationwide. Aportadera was formerly with
the Office of the Ombudsman.
Certainly, having these lawyers gives Teope a
great advantage, because they know the ins and outs of government,
particularly land titling.
If Teope has an air of mystery about her, it is
probably because she takes pains to conceal her identity. In her tax
declaration for the 30-hectare Los Baños land now being occupied by
the four S&T research agencies, Teope said she lives in Maliksi,
Bacoor, Cavite. Yet in her testimony to the Regional Trial Court,
she said she lives at 32 McDonell Street, Concorde Village, Tambo,
Parañaque. A Times staffer who went to the address to ask for an
interview was told, “No one by that name lives here.”
“Teope also claims residency in Batangas and
sometimes Bay,” says a government official in the area.
When Teope’s group broke through the BPI
compound on April 7, 2003, they left without taking their truck
marked Veraluz International Corporation, with plate number TDY 981.
The Times tried to call the main office of Veraluz International in
Ortigas, and was told by a manager that they have no staffer or
manager by that name.
In her court appearance on December 9, 2002,
Teope wore sunglasses while under cross-examination. She told the
court she has seven titles covering 309,688 square meters of the
Camp Eldridge military reservation. That area covers almost all of
the lands being occupied by the four S&T agencies.
A grandfather’s bequest?
She told the court she bought the lands from her
grandfather Sergio Teope from Albay through a deed of sale on March
25, 1979.
Times research shows that the 30-hectare
property was registered on October 19, 1939, in the Register of
Deeds of Laguna as Original Certificate of Title 83, pursuant to
Land Registration Authority Decree 344731.
But information shows the title was transferred
in the name of a certain Sergio Teope from Tabaco, Albay, on
November 12, 1942, as RT 7264 (22306) RT 808. The letters “RT”
indicate that Teope’s title–if it was “valid”–was a
reconstituted title. Put simply, that “title” was reconstructed
when the original copy from the Registry of Deeds was nowhere to be
found.
And on March 16, 2001, the lands covered by RT
7264 (22306) RT 808 were subdivided into seven parcels covered by
Transfer Certificate of Title Nos. 474562 to 68.
The Times asked Teope’s lawyer, Mamyerlito
Tan, for an interview with him and his client, but Tan refused,
saying the law firm’s managing partner would not agree to any
interview.
Tan also would not answer questions on the legal
basis and historical background of his client’s titles, saying
they have already filed a case in court and therefore would not want
to make any further comment.
“All we know is that we have all the titles,
the legal documents to prove our claim,” Tan told The Times in a
telephone conversation. “Sila wala.”
Asked if he or his client was aware that what
they are claiming is a military reservation, Tan replied: “They
claim it’s a military reservation but that’s what all they can
say.”
Tan said government lawyers from the Office of
the Solicitor General are arguing only about the government’s
“powers of eminent domain,” indicating that the S&T agencies
really have nothing to show for their possession of the lands.
Data provided by Dr. Patricio S. Failon, PCARRD
executive director and spokesman for the four S&T agencies based
in Timugan, Los Baños, say the Camp Eldridge military reservation
came into being by virtue of executive orders issued in 1903 until
1904. On February 14, 1916, US President Woodrow Wilson, through the
governor-general of the Philippine Islands, issued Proclamation 14
defining the boundaries of the reservation.
And on November 21, 1931, legislators passed
Commonwealth Act 3910 awarding the property to the Bureau of Plant
Industry for the establishment of a “BPI Economic Garden for
improving, demonstrating, propagating and promoting the raising, on
a large scale, of all known economic plants existing or being raised
in the Philippines.”
Since then other agencies like PCARRD, PCAMRD
and DOST have started up operations in the area.
But Tan questioned this information. “If
it’s a military reservation, why is it that our client has the
titles?” he asked. “At alam ko marami ding may mga titulo diyan.”
What about the possibility that the titles may
be spurious? Tan answered that’s for the court to determine.
“Basta kami in order lahat ang mga documents namin . . . May laban
kami.”
Besides the guts to challenge the government,
Teope certainly has money. On April 10, 2002, she paid P115, 943 in
real-property taxes to the municipal assessor for her three-hectare
property in Timugan.
And on December 9, 2002, she told the regional
trial court that she has already spent P5 million for a feasibility
study for the establishment of a hospital worth P100 million in
partnership with “Green Eagle Corporation.”
Familiar strategy
Other claimants, like Cesar Lopez and Pablo
Babasanta in the area, have almost the same approach in trying to
take control of the lands they are claiming.
Like Teope, Lopez had also approached the
Timugan residents and tried to post a billboard claiming he owns the
six-hectare land after paying his tax declaration to the municipal
assessor. He also demanded all households in Timugan to vacate in 15
days or face legal sanctions.
And just like Teope, Lopez could not be located
by Timugan residents when they tried to write him a letter disputing
his claims on the six-hectare Timugan lands.
Pablo Babasanta, for his part, said he lives in
Santa Rosa. But information gathered by the Manila Times research
team shows he lives in Dasmariñas, Cavite. (The Times called his
office three times, but his driver said his boss was not in.)
Babasanta, president and general manager of PS
Babasanta Customs Brokerage Corporation, however, was just content
with paying his tax declaration for his “property” in Bambang
covering the Rest Area.
Datu Dionisio Linao seems to have stopped paying
tax declaration and has now been forgotten.
Billion-peso temptation
“Nagtataka nga ako, sa pagkatinagal-tagal na
namin dito, eh bakit ngayon lang nagsisulputan itong mga ’to?”
Failon wondered, referring to the sudden onrush of claimants to the
areas in the military reservation.
Apparently, commercial motivation is the main
reason. Prime real estate in Los Baños has already reached P5,000
per square meter. This should be no surprise, because Los Baños–being
host to major institutions like the UPLB and the International Rice
Research Institute as well as having many resource-based wonders
like Mount Makiling, hot springs, historical sites like the
Yamashita-Homma Shrine, Dampalit Falls, among others–has been
emerging as a major tourist destination in Southern Tagalog.
Camp Eldridge military reservation, as defined
by Proclamation 14 in 1903, has a total area of 2,426,230 square
meters. At P5,000 per square meter, it could fetch a market value of
at least P12 billion.
Real estate in this new “science and nature
city” could be easily sold. Los Baños is a community of
professionals and scientists with high incomes. Many of them serve
as dollar-paid consultants to local and international agencies and
firms including the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, US Agency
for International Development, Canadian International Agency for
International Development, Ford Foundation, Danish Agency for
Development Assistance, and the United Nations Development Program,
and private multinational corportions like Monsanto and Bayer.
Proof of this huge purchasing power is the
proliferation of shopping malls and supermarkets (i.e. it has eight
for a small town of 84,000), fast foods and restaurants (i.e. 21 is
the latest count including McDonald’s, Jollibee, Chowking, Burger
King, Wendy’s, Greenwich, Pizza Hut, Dunkin Donuts), banks (six
branches), resorts and hotels (15 as of latest count), and lodging
houses.
Los Baños is vulnerable to land speculators
because 64 percent of its 5,650 hectares are public land. Because of
the government’s bad record-keeping and flimsy land registration,
many private individuals were able to get “titles” despite the
provisions of Republic Act 274 stressing that the land could be sold
only to private interests by way of presidential proclamation.
During the time of Braulio Darum as District
Land Officer of the Bureau of Lands, he distributed spurious
“Original Certificates of Titles.” Apparently many of those
titles must have eluded legal scrutiny. Information obtained by The
Times shows that at least 49 individuals were able to get
“titles” for properties in the Camp Eldridge military
reservation.
“These are small plots of land,” says an
official at the Laguna Provincial Environmental and Natural
Resources Office (PENRO).
But if some small people could get small plots,
some “big people” might have thought they could get bigger
plots, too. The thought is tempting because the financial rewards
are great and the costs small.
Rumors abound that the former officer of PENRO
was offered by some unidentified people P4 million to lay off the
case. A BPI official also admitted to The Times that a
representative of Teope once visited him to ask his “help” in
facilitating the transfer of the lands to Teope.
Failon told The Times that one of his top
officials was told “Sabihin mo kay Dr. Failon, tumahimik na lang
siya at pag nakuha na naming ang lupa, ido-donate na lang namin yung
lupang tinitirikan ng PCARRD.”
Teope’s seven transfer certificates of titles
covered more than 309,000 square meters. If she wins the case in
court she would immediately be richer by P1.5 billion. Babasanta
will be richer by P189 million and Cesar Lopez will get a windfall
of at least P250 million.
The land has already attracted real-estate
speculators. All over Los Baños, rumors are floating that the BPI
compound will soon be converted into a mall. Others say it’ll
probably become a high-end residential area featuring rows of
condominiums.
William Palacol, a real-estate agent based in
nearby Calamba town, said he was approached late last year by a man
in his fifties recruiting him to “presell” the BPI and PCARRD
compound to interested buyers. He gave his calling card but Palacol
has yet to receive a call from the guy.
“Siguro dahil may kaso pa at lumalaban yung
PCARRD,” he speculated. “Pero ’pag malaki na ang pera at
stake, papayag din ’yun.”
To be continued
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