Benemerito Satorre

I HAVE lived in Naga since 1975.

As a public school teacher in Naga from 1968 to 1977, I became familiar with the terrain of the Balili property being a frequent customer to the resort.

On one occasion, the owner, Engr. Balili (now deceased) and I had a round of his favorite “tuba” gathered from some coconut trees located within the Balili Resort compound.

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Thus, when I first read in a local daily that Capitol was buying the Balili Resort consisting of 25 hectares, I was puzzled by the reported size of the land.

Based on my personal knowledge, the dry land of the Balili property could not have been that big.

The sale was consummated and Capitol paid a sizeable sum for a portion of the property that is nonexistent being part of the sea.

There are lots of finger-pointing now as who is to be blame for the fiasco.

Gov. Gwen Garcia did a “mea culpa” by publicly apologizing for what had happened.

A noble act, perhaps, but a mere “I am sorry” does not obliterate their culpability.

There’s no one else to blame for this error but the Provincial Board itself for approving the deal and the governor for, at least, her command responsibility.

The acquisition of a property through sale is a simple process.

Common sense dictates that when you buy something, you thoroughly examine the subject of the sale before paying.

It’s a shame that PB members who are also lawyers failed to suggest that a location survey should be conducted to determine the metes and bounds of the property to be acquired before the final approval of the sale.

It is unusual for a person to pay for a thing without having examined it carefully to ascertain if there are infirmities in it.

Paying a huge sum of money for a thing without having seen it is sheer madness, if not stupidity.

The reason advanced by PB Member Juan Bolo, that he merely relied on the findings/report of the Appraisal Committee is untenable.

A person’s appreciation of things may differ with others.

Hence, what is considered by the Appraisal Committee as “good” may not be good enough for public officials who are tasked of protecting the people’s money.

Bear in mind that the amount involved in this transaction is huge (P98 million).

That’s a lot of taxpayer’s money in any language.

This flawed transaction having been consummated, the people only wish that provincial officials should have been more circumspect in the performance of their duties.

There is a chance, though, that the corresponding value of the portion of the submerged land will be recovered if the vendors voluntarily do so.

If they aren’t willing to return the money, then court litigation may ensue, which is expensive and cumbersome.

The certificate of title may be clean, but that is another issue.

What is very questionable here is the property subject of the purchase.

I believe that appropriate government agencies should look into the matter on why a certificate of title was issued when the land could not be titled in the first place.

It is high time to look into the shenanigans in DENR.

I am just wondering, as a lawyer and with my over 20 years of experience in the road right of way work with the National Power Corp. (NPC), why the seeming haste in paying the Balili property.

We have never done that is NPC.

Every aspect of the deal is scrutinized and verified.

Aside from verifying the title, the property subject of acquisition is inspected and a relocation survey is conducted so that its meter and bounds would be defined and the area confirmed.

We even go beyond conducting a background check with the adjacent landowners to know of any information that would be of importance for NPC management to decide whether to go on with the acquisition or not.

Remember that we are paying the land per square meter.

Thus, every square meter matters a lot.

Lastly, let me remind the provincial officials, of the legal maxim of “caveat emptor,” which literally means that “the buyer must beware.”

This is very basic.

There are many questions still unanswered.

The answer lies in the heart and mind of these officials.

Even with the fact-finding by the Office of the Deputy Ombudsman for Visayas, the truth as to who made money out of this transaction may not be known forever.

But they will be haunted by their own conscience for a lifetime.

Published in the Sun.Star Cebu newspaper on November 11, 2009.