Malilong: Absurd proposition

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

THIS one’s for Ripley.

A family that has been dogging City Hall’s heels in order to collect millions of pesos for a property that the city has, for decades, been using as a road could end up being the one in debt instead.

The weird turn of events came about after the Cebu City treasurer’s office has determined that the heirs of Fr. Vicente Rallos had not been paying taxes on the nearly half-hectare lot for which the city, according to a recent Supreme Court decision, owes the heirs millions in just compensation.

It’s a little complicated, but from what I read in the papers, this is what happened:

The city government expropriated 4,654 square meters of Fr. Rallos’s property in Sambag II and used it as a road (Mathias Aznar Road). A dispute arose on how much the city should pay, giving rise to a court case that went all the way up to the Supreme Court.

Apparently, while the case was pending, the city treasurer continued to compute realty taxes on the land and charged them to the heirs. Of course, the latter didn’t pay because they were no longer in possession of the land.

The taxes thus became “delinquent” and on May 27, this year, the city sold the public road at public auction which it won, being the only bidder. For one reason or another, the City Treasurer’s Office said the Ralloses still owe them taxes even after bidding out and acquiring a property, which is worth, according to the Ralloses’ lawyer, hundreds of millions of pesos, for a paltry sum of a little less than P300,000.

Trying to understand the city treasurer’s position is mind-boggling. Basically, what the office is saying is that even if the city has effectively deprived you of the use, possession and enjoyment of your property, you continue to be liable to pay realty taxes on it because the ownership still rested in you until you are paid just compensation.

What if, as in the Rallos case, the city refuses to pay just compensation for a long, long time? The tax liability continues to run and becomes delinquent, the city auctions off the property and voila, it doesn’t have to pay just compensation anymore because it already owns your property!

I am sure that Mayor Michael Rama, Councilors Edgar Labella, Bebs Andales and Joey Daluz and all the other lawyers in City Hall wouldn’t miss the absurdity in the proposition.

***

When I met Cordova Mayor Adelino Sitoy during the birthday party of Judge Joshua Palalay a couple of weeks ago, I teased him about the presence of cybersex operations in his town. Ever the good-natured one, he laughed softly.

I’m afraid that it is not a laughing matter anymore. It wasn’t very long ago when parents in Mayor Sitoy’s town were caught making their minor children do lewd acts in front of a web camera. Last Tuesday, another raid yielded almost identical results: a minor forced to commit sexual perversion under the watchful eyes of her mother.

In all probability, cybersex is prevalent in other towns as well and it is just coincidental that only the ones in Cordova have been exposed. Still, the negative publicity is hurting Addie’s town, which is what makes it necessary for him to demonstrate more resoluteness in the fight against child pornography.

The town residents should do their part, too and they can start by pressuring the local police, who had very little, if at all, participation in the two recent raids, to pay more attention to the menace. Surely, they do not want their beloved town to earn the unwanted tag of being the cybersex capital of Cebu.

(frank.otherside@yahoo.com)