|
By David L. Llorito, Research Head
4th of 5 Parts
LOS BAÑOS, LAGUNA–Are the titles of the land
claimants Teresita Teope, Cesar Lopez and Pablo Babasanta authentic?
Vicente A. Garcia, Register of Deeds in Calamba,
seems to think so. On May 20, 2002, he issued a certification saying
Teope’s titles are “existing and intact among the registry
files.” He is sure of that because he himself signed the
certification on March 16, 2001.
He will probably say the same for Pablo
Babasanta’s titles. In fact, Garcia’s signature as Register of
Deeds also appeared in Babasanta’s title, TCT No. T-496977. The
title indicates that Babasanta’s titles entered into the vaults of
the Registry of Deeds in Calamba on April 19, 2002.
The good, the bad and the doubtful
Everyone who has read Registration of Land
Titles and Deeds, a book by Antonio Noblejas, former commissioner of
the Land Registration Authority, would learn that land titles–free
patents, original certificates of titles, transfer certificates of
titles, sales patents–could be “good, doubtful and bad.”
Good titles are those that never give their
owners headache, because they are enforceable in the world. In
lawyer-speak, the title is “indefeasible.” No one can challenge
it; not even the government.
Dubious titles are based only on tax
declarations or Spanish titles that could expose the owners to legal
challenges. The bad ones are those that, when sold, convey no
property at all. They are flawed, tainted, imperfect, spurious and
therefore void from the start either because of technical errors or
because the titles were fraudulently obtained.
Legally, only the courts can decide the validity
of a land title. That is the strength of the Torrens title. It is
always presumed valid until proven otherwise. One can only question
its validity through a court proceeding convened for that purpose.
Nevertheless, based on The Times’ research,
there are compelling reasons to believe that the titles of
claimants, particularly Teope and Babasanta, are spurious.
It all started in the garden
How did PCARRD, PCAMRD, BPI and DOST come to
locate their operations in the Economic Garden or the Camp Eldridge
military reservation? The following historical facts surrounds the
establishment of the BPI and other science and technology agencies:
1. Proclamation 14 dated February 14, 1916, and
signed by Governor-General Francis Burton Harrison, provides some
historical background and technical information on the Camp Eldridge
military reservation.
2. Section 1 of the proclamation indicates that
Camp Eldridge was established “by Executive Order dated September
1, 1903 (General Orders 34, War Department, October 18, 1903),
modified by Executive Order dated December 6, 1904 (General Orders,
188, War Department, December 14, 1904) and enlarged by a tract
bought for a target range for the reservation in 1914 (Transfer
Certificate of Title 288, dated December 16, 1914)….” The
proclamation also defines the boundaries of the Camp, indicating
that the entire reservation is defined by survey Plan Psu-2861 with
an area of 2,426,230 square meters, or about 242.23 hectares.
3. According to information obtained from the
Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), the
Commonwealth government passed Commonwealth Act 3910 entitled “An
Act providing for the establishment, maintenance and operation of an
Economic Garden in Camp Eldridge, Los Baños,” on November 20,
1931. The Economic Garden was established “for improving,
demonstrating, propagating and promoting the raising on a large
scale of all known economic plants existing or which are now being
raised in the Philippine Islands….”
4. And when the Americans left the country, they
turned over the Camp Eldridge military reservation to the
Philippines by virtue of the Tydings-McDuffie Law or the Treaty of
General Relations on July 4, 1946, and the US-Philippine Military
Bases Agreement on March 14, 1947.
Since the establishment of the BPI Economic
Garden, other agencies like the PCARRD, PCAMARD and DOST have
started up operations in the reservation through a lease with the
BPI.
In 1998 the DENR Region IV contemplated
establishing a “socialized housing project” within the
reservation for its employees. The move, according to some sources,
created a rift between the BPI and DENR-Region IV.
Since 2002, however, the agencies had to set
aside their differences to deal with a private claimant, Teresita
Teope, who started pressuring the agencies into vacating the
Economic Garden.
Spurious claims
From the photocopy of Teope’s mother title and
her subsequent Transfer Certificates of Titles (TCT) that were
obtained by The Manila Times, it would appear that an unidentified
person was able to obtain Original Certificate of Title (OCT) 83 for
government lands on October 19, 1939, under Land Registration
Authority Decree 344731.
After that, it would appear that ownership of
the land went to another unidentified person through Transfer
Certificate of Title 107011.
Eventually, the same title was transferred to a
certain Teope of Tabaco Albay, as a “reconstituted title” RT
7264 (22306) RT-808 on November 12, 1942. The letters “RT”
signify that the new title was reconstructed after the original copy
of OCT 83 was lost or destroyed. Reconstitution should mean that the
new title number emerged as a result of court proceedings.
Where are the court records for the
reconstitution process nobody also seems to know from the Registry
of Deeds, the Land Management Bureau or the DENR.
On March 25, 1979, Sergio Teope supposedly sold
the lands to her granddaughter Teresita Teope, the daughter of
Lolita Tajan and Ruben Teope. On March 16, 2001, the same parcel of
land was subdivided into seven titles all in the name of Teresita
Teope. A year after, Teope started paying for the real-property tax
on “her property.”
By just looking at the year (1939) in which the
unidentified person was able to get a title (OCT 83), it would
appear that it would not have been possible for the same person to
get a title for a property that was not alienable and disposable
during that time.
Furthermore, Proclamation 14 indicates that a
significant portion of Camp Eldridge was already covered by TCT 288,
thus making the original title (OCT 83) and its derivative titles
invalid.
A top official of the Provincial Environmental
and Natural Office (PENRO) in Laguna told The Times that under
Section 88 of the Public Land Act, the “lands being part of the
military reservation remain alienable and disposable unless
otherwise declared under the Act or by proclamation of the
President.” There was no proclamation from the President.
Times research shows that under the Public Land
Act, only the President of the Philippines has the authority to sign
patents or certificates granted from public lands, particularly when
the land in question is beyond five hectares.
Nonexistent claimant?
Until now, no one in the DENR, particularly the
Land Management Bureau, seems to know the mysterious persons who got
the title for the Economic Garden in 1939 until it got into the
hands of Sergio Teope. Perhaps those persons does not exist, because
information obtained by The Times indicates that the file for the
mother title (RT 808) at the Register of Deeds in Calamba does not
exist.
Manila has asked for the envelopes or folders
containing the documents indicating the origins of Teope’s seven
titles. After one week, I was ushered into the vaults containing
voluminous folders and envelopes piled on top of the other and was
shown two folders with TCT 474560 and TCT 474569. Teope’s
documents, envelopes or files with TCT Nos. 474562 to 68, or the
numbers in between the series, were missing.
Salvador L. Oriel, chief of the docket division
of the Land Registration Authority (LRA) in Quezon City, had also
issued a certification on August 30, 2002, saying that the LRA
didn’t file for LRA decree 344731, the basis for the issuance of
OCT 83, which ended up as RT 7264 (22306) RT-808 on the lap of
Sergio Teope.
How could a title emerge without the
corresponding documents? If indeed the mysterious person from whom
Sergio Teope got the reconstituted title existed, why did he not
stake his claim immediately after he got the titles in 1939?
And if Sergio Teope indeed obtained the title in
1942, why did he also not take any action to remove the BPI and the
other agencies now operating in the area? Why did he not apply for
tax declarations?
Teresita Teope apparently tried to remedy the
situation by getting her tax declarations for the seven titles on
April 10, 2002. But according to a PENRO official, paying for tax
declaration would not mean anything, because one has to pay tax
declaration for 30 years before one’s ownership of the land is
established.
The devil in the detail
The greatest arguments against Teope’s title
seem to be the titles themselves.
In a report prepared by Rogelio L. Delgado dated
May 10, 2002, and addressed to the regional executive director of
DENR-IV, he found it unusual that the PSU number indicated in
Teope’s TCTs have five digits (PSU 47580) instead of three or four
since the OCT was supposedly approved on October 13, 1939.
Delgado also found that the survey plan
indicated a barrio road that is now called PCARRD-Jamboree Road. He
said the road did not exist in 1939. Other sources in Los Baños
disclosed that Jamboree Road was built sometime in 1959 to
facilitate the entry of thousands of delegates to the 10th World Boy
Scout Jamboree.
Another piece of information that is
questionable is the survey plan for the subdivision into seven
titles. The document indicates that a line where the homeowner or
claimant is supposed to approve the plan has not been signed. This
is irregular because the Land Management Bureau (LMB) would not
normally approve it unless the owner or claimant has signed first.
If Teresita T. Teope is really the owner, since 1979, why did she
not sign it?
Other major flaws are in the technical
description of the seven titles. The Times Research Team plotted
Teope’s seven titles based on the technical description and found
that the traverses of five titles do not close. These are TCTs
4744563, 474565, 474566, 474564 and 474568.
Put simply, when the shape and boundaries of the
properties technically described in the titles are drawn on a map,
the last point for each title should end up in the first point to
form a closed polygon. In this case, the five out of seven are open,
making these titles senseless because one would not be able to
compute the area as supposedly defined by the title (See Table 1).
The 30-hectare land could never be subdivided
into seven lots without an approved subdivision plan. The survey
plan for Teope was PSD-04-043088. As shown in Table 1, a computation
made by The Times research shows that the calculated area based on
the technical description in the approved survey plan differed
significantly from those specified in Teope’s TCT. It’s as if
the titles and PSD-04-043088 are two different things.
The Times also noted at least two other errors
that show Teope’s titles are technically spurious. First, the
approved survey plan for Teope’s titles appears to have adjacent
survey plan PSU-202257. The Times learned from DENR sources that
Plan PSU-202257 is in Iriga City, Camarines Sur.
How could a survey done in Los Baños have an
adjacent survey done in another region several hundreds of
kilometers away?
Second, when the technical description indicated
in the approved survey is plotted, Teope’s titles appear to have
substantial overlaps with other private properties, probably with
those of Honorato Javier, Manuel Hibas and another unknown property
beside the Girl Scouts of the Philippines compound. Titles whose
technical descriptions overlap with other valid titles are legally
invalid.
Babasanta or Ali Baba?
Pablo Babasanta’s title (TCT No. T-496977)
covers 37,765 square meters of land in Barangay Bambang, Los Baños,
Laguna. It was originally Original Certificate of Title MSP-31, with
sales patent number 57683 granted to a certain Sofronio Babasanta on
October 26, 1980.
In technical terms, the land is known as Lot
5892, CAD 450, Los Baños Cadastre Plan S (IV-5892).
Sofronio Babasanta’s title was a miscellaneous
sales patent, indicating that he bought the lands from the
government. The title seems impressive because it was supposed to be
signed by Jose J. Leido Jr., the minister of natural resources
during the Marcos administration.
Babasanta’s purchase of the land was
supposedly covered by Sales Application (IV-5) 5892. On April 19,
2002, the title was transferred to Pablo and became TCT 496977.
Information obtained by The Times disclosed that
based on the lot data computation and cadastral map, Lot 5892, CAD
450 is located in Barangay Tuntungin, Los Baños, and not in Bambang.
Further information suggests that the lot was surveyed in the name
of a certain Adela M. Vera and covered an area of 255 square meters,
and not 37,765 square meters.
Investigation also shows that the boundaries of
Plan S (IV-5) 5892-D in Babasanta’s titles turned out to be
inconsistent with the lot data computation of Lot 5892.
Also, Leonido V. Bordeos, officer in charge of
the Records Management Division, Land Management Bureau in Binondo,
said that Sales Application (IV-5) 5892 “does not appear to have
been received by and recorded in the Sales Application Registry
Book.” There was neither any application for public land nor a
survey plan in the records of the Laguna PENRO and the Community
Environment and Natural Resources Office (CENRO).
It turned out that the records of OCT-MSP-31
granted to Sofronio Babasanta and transferred to Pablo Babasanta
were nonexistent. Reliable sources also said Sofronio Babasanta has
never applied for any public land at the PENRO or CENRO office in
Laguna.
To be continued
|
