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By David L. Llorito, Research Head
Conclusion
LOS BAÑOS, Laguna–Is the Department of Environment
and Natural Resources, particularly its Land Management Bureau (LMB),
a keeper of the country’s patrimony or its real-estate agent?
Under the law, all lands originally belong to
the state. Those that were not sold to private interests stay with
the government in the care of DENR, particularly the LMB.
But the onrush of what appears to be attempts at
land grabbing of public lands in Los Baños indicates that the
department–or at least some of its employees in Southern Tagalog–together
with other government agencies like the Registry of Deeds, is just
too willing to sell off the national patrimony to private interests
without regard to public interest.
Not the first time
The basic fact remains that the Camp Eldridge
military reservation was a public land. Private interests could have
portions of it only through presidential proclamation.
In 1978 a certain Tomas C. Tolibas challenged
this notion when he got titles from the former director of lands,
Braulio Darum, covering almost four hectares of property where the
UP Los Baños Limnological Research Station is standing as well as
some parts of the Economic Garden within the camp, the area now
being claimed by Teresita Teope.
In 1981 UP Los Baños filed a case at the
Calamba Regional Trial Court seeking to nullify Tolibas’ titles.
Tolibas fought back and got a ruling from the court on October 11,
1991, dismissing UPLB’s petition and citing the “doctrine of
indefeasibility of title.” UPLB appealed to the Court of Appeals,
which reversed the ruling of the regional trial court on July 28,
1995.
“To repeat,” said the Court of Appeals,
“Camp Eldridge was a military reservation. . . . Its
disposition, if the property is not anymore needed for military
purposes, is covered by R. A. 274, which needed approval by the
President in the matter of sales to persons qualified to acquire
public lands. . . .”
The court added: “Public lands that are not
disposable cannot be supported by a valid title.”
The Supreme Court upheld that decision on June
28, 1999.
Who helped Teope?
That people like Teresita Teope, Pablo Babasanta
and Cesar Lopez could get “titles” printed on security paper
could only mean that some public officials were just too
accommodating.
To make Teope’s acquisition of the titles on
the 30-hectare Timugan property appear “legal,” there has to be
an approved survey plan.
Apparently at the request of Teope, the DENR
Region IV, through its Land Management Sector, accommodated her.
Based on approved subdivision plan PSU 47580
“as surveyed for Sergio Teope,” a geodetic engineer, Aniano P.
Macasadia, did the survey on June 3-5, 1990.
In just 10 days, Macasadia submitted the results
to the regional technical director, Pedro N. Calimlim, who
immediately signed the survey plan. And on June 23, 1990–just
eight days after–Eleuterio R. Paz, chief of the regional surveys
division of DENR Region IV Land Management Sector, approved the
plan.
The speed with which the survey plan was
approved appears to be highly irregular.
“For one, surveying a 30-hectare land in three
days appears to be impossible during that time,” says a geodetic
engineer interviewed by The Times. “In 1990 instruments like Total
Station, which automatically gives off accurate range and angles
through a point-and-shoot method, were not available or not widely
used in the Philippines. Surveying the 30-hectare land using the old
technology should take longer, probably months.”
Did Macasadia inform the affected S&T
agencies about the survey? Apparently not. Did he actually conduct
the survey? Or did he just make a “table survey”?
Approved in haste
Another irregular aspect is the haste with which
PSU 47580 was approved by Calimlim and Paz.
“It would normally take months or a year
before one could have the survey approved by the DENR,” says a
geodetic engineer. The delays in the approval, he said, are due to
verification and counterchecking of the location of property for
possible land conflicts.
“In fact, long delays in the approval of land
surveys are among the major complaints among geodetic engineers
against the Land Management Bureau.”
Once the property was subdivided, Teope now had
to go to the Registry of Deeds in Calamba to get the titles. The
Registry of Deeds is under the Department of Justice apparently to
put some checks and balances to the activities of the DENR/LMB. And
on March 16, 2001, Vicente A. Garcia signed Teope’s seven titles,
in effect “legitimizing” them.
Asked by The Times if he is aware that the area
covered by Teope’s “titles” is actually part of the Camp
Eldride military reservation, Garcia angrily replied, “I’m not
an interested party in the issue” and that “would not make any
comment.”
“You better ask the interested parties–PCARRD,
Teope,” he said.
The Times repeated the question if he was aware
that Teope’s titles covered Camp Eldridge military reservation and
have long been occupied by government science and technology
agencies, he retorted: “May pinanggalingan ’yun . . .”
Asked further about the supposed origin of the
titles, he said: “I don’t want to make any comment. I’ll give
you all the documents that you need and you make your own
conclusion. . . .”
The Times was indeed ushered in to the vaults by
Rene Binalbo, a records officer, and was told amid a tumble of old
dusty, yellowing records to return a week later for them to find the
envelopes supposedly containing the “origins” of Teope’s
titles.
After a week, The Times went back to the
Registry of Deeds and was ushered into the vaults again supposedly
containing voluminous folders and envelopes piled on top of the
other and was shown two folders numbered TCT 474560 and TCT 474569.
Teope’s documents, envelopes or files with TCT 474562 to 68, or
the numbers in between the series, were missing.
If the documents were available, they could have
easily produced them, considering that Teope’s seven titles were
signed only on March 16, 2001, and therefore are on top of the heap
of documents lying on the ground inside the vaults.
Apparently, one of the documents referred to as
among the “origins” of Teope’s titles is PSU 47580, surveyed
for Sergio Teope and which became Psd 04-043088 when the area was
subdivided into seven lots.
And based on the approved survey plan, Eleuterio
Paz, chief of the regional surveys division of DENR Region IV-LMB,
certified that “the bearings and distances of the boundary lines
of the land herein subdivided as well as the aggregate area are
identical to those described in RT-7264 (22306) RT-808 as certified
by the Registry of Deeds.” (Italics supplied)
In effect, the survey that gave the 30-hectare
lands to Teope was based also on the documents from the Registry of
Deeds.
How the two agencies, particularly the DENR-LMB,
could miss out on information about a 30-hectare public land near to
Metro Manila long known to be a military reservation occupied by
high-profile science and technology agencies boggles the mind.
Checks and balances are apparently absent
between these two agencies.
Foot-dragging
Equally mind-boggling is that even some
government agencies empowered to immediately clarify the
landownership crisis have been dragging their feet.
On April 24, 2002–two weeks after the
“discovery” of Teope’s titles–the heads of the four S&T
agencies formally asked the Southern Tagalog regional director,
Samuel Peñafiel, to investigate the problem. But it took a month
(May 27, 2002) before Peñafiel ordered an investigation.
The investigating committee was composed of a
lawyer, Raymundo L. Apuhin, Marlou Pelayo-Alutaya, Robert Cortes and
an engineer, Daniel de los Santos.
On May 6, 2003, almost a year after the creation
of the committee, Apuhin submitted a three-page report. Its main
findings: Teope could not have gotten the title, since Camp Eldridge
“is not capable of alienation, not to mention that before the
issuance of the title, a portion of the former Camp Eldridge
military reservation was established by virtue of C.A. 3910 as an
Economic Garden.”
The report adds: “It appears that portion of
Camp Eldridge reservation is already covered by TCT 288, issued on
December 16, 1914. Therefore, the Original Certificate of Title and
derivative TCTs issued over the subject area, are void and without
any legal force and effect.”
The report seems to be forceful except that it
did not delve into how Teope’s supposed titles went through the
mill. That way Apuhin would have ferreted out the roles of Pedro
Calimlim, the former regional technical director, and Eleuterio R.
Paz, chief legal officer of the surveys division, all from the same
office, LMB, as well as other DENR and Registry of Deeds employees
who might have helped Teope.
Did the survey teams inform the affected S&T
agencies that they were surveying the lands for Teope? Was the DENR-IV
regional director aware that his staff in the LMB had facilitated
Teope’s acquisition of the Economic Garden, which was being
considered by the regional office as socialized housing for its
employees? Is it possible that the top officials of DENR were not
aware of such a very big land transaction?
Questions like these should have been raised had
Apuhin’s committee been more thorough. Is Apuhin trying to cover
Paz and Calimlim, who are his former co-employees?
In a telephone interview Apuhin even defended
Calimlim, saying he could not have approved without the
recommendations of “technical people.” He did not name them,
however.
He speculated that maybe Camp Eldridge was not
reflected in DENR-Region IV’s “control map.” It’s a lame
excuse, considering that LMB, being the only agency authorized to do
original surveys, is the repository of control maps and others
showing the location of public lands, including military
reservations, national parks, watersheds and protected areas.”
One major agency that could probably solve the
land conflict in Los Baños quickly is the Land Registration
Authority (LRA), which keeps copies of all land titles and
land-related documents all over the country.
On April 1, 2003, Secretary of Agriculture Luis
P. Lorenzo and Secretary Estrella F. Alabastro of Science and
Technology wrote Benedicto B. Ulep, LRA administrator, asking “for
an investigation into the authenticity and validity of Teope’s
titles.”
The two secretaries stressed that Teope’s
acquisition of TCTs for the 30-hectare Timugan land “would
constitute a travesty of justice, equity and fair play to the great
prejudice of the state.”
A check with officials of the four S&T
agencies showed that Ulep had yet to investigate. Why the LRA is not
moving heaven and earth to address the issue is another big
question.
Teope’s petition to Branch 35 of the Regional
Trial Court to force the government to surrender the Timugan lands
to her would either be dismissed or given due course by the court,
depending on how the lawyers from the Office of the Solicitor
General would argue their case.
But a dismissal will not necessarily solve the
government’s problem; the titles of Teope, Babasanta and Lopez
will still be there. The logical recourse is for the government to
nullify the titles.
Should that happen, theses cases would pit the
Office of the Solicitor General–which is under the Department of
Justice (DOJ)–representing the S&T agencies against the
Registry of Deeds and Land Registration Authority, which are also
under the DOJ, and probably against the DENR. Which side will the
justice secretary take?
Unless the executive and legislators take a
firmer role to ferret out the truth about this scam, questions on
land registration and ownership in the Philippines will continue to
raise more questions than answers.
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