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Sunday, March 19, 2006
Another lot deal examined
By Gingging A. Campaña
Sun.Star Staff Reporter
Buying private property at the South Reclamation Project (SRP) is like buying a pearl inside an oyster, said Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña.
Upon learning that the City Council is worried the City Government might buy the property of Roque Ting, which is half-water and half-land, the mayor said, “Never mind the water, it’s already a bonus.”
“That’s what we are trying to say. It’s like buying a pearl inside the oyster and somebody says, the oyster is worthless, but the pearl, there’s some value to it. Never mind the oyster, look at the pearl. So that water, whatever it is, at least that portion is in our name,” he told a news conference last week.
But a former project director of the Metro Cebu Project Development (MCDP) 3 said Cebu City Hall should not give P9 million to Roque Ting for a property, which he claims the SRP has encroached on.
Samuel Darza contested Ting’s claim that his 1.2-hectare property was all land before the MCDP began the SRP in 1997.
Darza also denied Ting’s claim that the MCDP promised him, through a memorandum of agreement (MOA), another property to replace the one that the City reclaimed.
Reclaimed
He also dismissed allegations that it was MCDP that dismantled Ting’s warehouses for his dried fish business to give way to the SRP.
Ting’s property, Darza said, was at one time under water. He said Ting was the one who reclaimed the foreshores in the area and the Public Estates Authority (PEA) issued a cease-and-desist order, stopping him from pushing through with the activity.
But he went on with his reclamation and PEA did nothing. That was how that 1,500 square meters got into the SRP but more than a half of that was water, he added.
“I am trying to get hold of a copy of that order and the MOA he was referring to. He reclaimed that area and built a warehouses on it. When he went to my office, I told him the City cannot pay him because that area he was claiming was underwater. I told him ‘How did you have this titled when this is underwater?’ I already learned that he reclaimed it illegally.”
“There was a property nearby that was part submerged and part dry land, which seems to be not owned by anybody.
He made me promise that I will not object if he will make a claim on that property. I told him it’s not mine, it’s up to him to claim it and it’s up to the (Department of Environment and Natural Resources) DENR to deal with him,” Darza told Sun.Star Cebu yesterday.
Witness
He said the MOA that Ting was referring to did not promise any replacement but “the commitment on my part is not to object to his claim to that property nearby.”
As to the demolished warehouses, Darza said it was Ting who demolished the structures himself. Talisay, then a municipality, issued him a notice because he lacked the building permits for the warehouses.
“I’m sure the Government of Talisay has a record of it,” he said.
The Cebu City Council will invite Darza to the executive session on April 5 to shed light on Ting’s claims. Darza said he is willing to go and tell the City what he knows.
Ting, at the session last Wednesday, told the council that his 1.2-hectare property is divided by the boundary of the cities of Talisay and Cebu.
“The 4,222 square-meter portion of it falls within Cebu City and affected by the SRP. He wants this compensated because the 2,000 square meters have become a canal because they excavated soil from the middle. The other half is still land,” he revealed.
‘Hardheaded’
Ting said the excavated materials were made to fill the area, which the MCDP alluded to as the one to replace his properties.
Osmeña warned the Council that the City can be held liable because Ting’s property is titled under his name.
He said his colleagues are just acting on the move to compensate Ting with his 4,222-square-meter lot like how they look at the proposed land swap deal with the Cebu Provincial Government.
“Let them finish with their deliberation because apparently they are just being hardheaded about this just like the case of the Province,” he said.
“The money is not going to come out of the pocket of (Vice Mayor) Mike Rama or (Councilor) Joy Pesquera’s. It will come out of the Cebuanos’ pockets. He has a title, period. It is in our reclamation area, period. That’s the short way of looking at it and if he wants to kick us out he will win because his is a titled property,” the mayor added.
He explained that Ting could have sold the property to Talisay, “and then we would have a hell of a problem.”
Resistance
Talisay City is staking a 53-hectare claim over the SRP.
“Maybe that’s what the council wants. They want us to have a problem. I already discussed it with them. I don’t know why there is still this resistance right now,” Osmeña said.
Ting had said his property, which is being mortgaged to the Philippine National Bank (PNB), is due for foreclosure and the bank has been giving him enough grace period to redeem his property.
The mayor fears that if the bank gets fed up and forecloses Ting’s property, the businessman might file a “multi-billion damage suit against the City.”
“I only pity Mr. Ting. He has to pay his debt,” he said. (GAC)
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (March 19, 2006 issue)
Write letter to the editor.Click here.
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