3 houses up for demolition

THREE houses at Pinsao Pilot are up for demolition after the anti-squatting committee recommended the action for alleged ancestral land claimants.

The demolition was scheduled Friday but one of the claimants, Roger Sinot, up to the last minute, pleaded with the City Government to suspend the demolition.

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The entire property is eight hectares. Sinot said a claimant, identified as a certain Martin Domingo, is claiming a portion of the property.

Sinot said the complainant, however, could not identify the exact metes and bounds of his supposed property so demolition should be suspended in the meantime.

Sinot also said the Department of the Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) paid more attention to a town-site sales applicant than ancestral land claimants like him and his neighbors who were recently issued notices of demolition.

He warned they are ready to file a petition for contempt.

Sinot said the City Government defied an earlier agreement they had that demolition will be suspended in the meantime until the metes and bounds of the claimed property have been identified.

Sinot said this has not been accomplished yet.

An earlier letter of the counsel for the heirs of Wesley Sinot also claimed the City Government failed to abide by an administrative order of the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) on the rules on pleadings, practices and procedures before the commission.

"Your act of issuing such demolition advice is a blatant disregard to the lawful orders and quasi-judicial powers of the NCIP," Lawyer Tomas Kiwang Jr. said.

Kiwang said the demolition advice "is an unlawful interference with the processes before the NCIP."

He gave the city five days to recall the notices.

The anti-squatting committee, however, still recommended the demolition of the houses owned by Sinot, Alejo Bestog and Marial Manigit.