Saturday, May 03, 2008 Tomas seeks study on how city can protect 93-1 lot occupants
EVEN THOUGH the National Government gave up its interests over the Banilad Friar Lands Estate, Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña said the City will continue to study how it can protect the urban poor families occupying some affected lots.
Osmeña said the Capitol-owned properties that the City’s urban poor constituents are occupying are part of the 19.29 million square meters of property known as the Banilad Friar Lands Estate, which covers a big area in Cebu City.
He has asked the City Attorney’s Office to look for other legal options they can take to protect the occupants, he said.
“Our concern about the friar lands is basically the occupants of 93-1 lots.... I don’t like to go into details because that’s a legal issue being studied. We’re not concerned about the Cebu Country Club or Cebu Business Park. Whatever we can do to help the urban poor, we will do it,” he told a news conference yesterday.
Osmeña’s statement came after Sun.Star Cebu reported that the Office of the Solicitor General (Sol-Gen) has finally put to rest the legal issue on the property by taking the stand that the government was “divested of its interest” over the Banilad Friar Lands.
It said that it no longer intends to execute the 2002 Supreme Court ruling that lot 727, or a portion of the Banilad Friar Lands Estate contested by Cebu Country Club and the Alonso family, belongs to the government.
Osmeña earlier said that if the City gets the chance, it would question the Province’s ownership of the lots under Provincial Ordinance 93-1, which are now occupied by the City’s constituents.
Capitol officials said earlier the Province will not be affected by the legal battle involving the friar lands since it deals only with occupants whose documents were burned during the war.
The Cebu Provincial Government bought some 600 hectares that were part of the friar lands, but these are not subject to the bill confirming the validity of existing titles, Capitol officials had said.
The Province showed a copy of an executive order dated June 2, 1918 signed by then governor-general Francis Burton Harrison.
The order conveyed some 600 hectares to the Province for P32,930.
Former Cebu governor and now Rep. Pablo Garcia (Cebu, 2nd district), who is Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia’s father, had said the Capitol is not in the same situation as other landowners who are holding titles that do not bear the signature of the then interior secretary. (LCR)
