Sunday, May 11, 2008 Malilong: Happily ever after By Frank Malilong The Other Side
ALL’S well that ends well?
The recent statement from the Solicitor General’s Office that it no longer intends to pursue a Supreme Court decision awarding to the national government ownership of portions of the Banilad Friar Lands Estate must have been music to the ears of the registered owners of the vast tract of land.
They have Cebu City-North Rep. Raul del Mar and Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile to thank for. The pair skillfully shepherded the bill confirming the title of the registered owners in their respective chambers until it was passed by Congress and signed into law on May 9 last year by President Arroyo.
“Vast” is actually an understatement in describing the size of the property involved. Its aggregate area is almost 20 million square meters and it encompasses a territory of upscale subdivisions, malls, a golf course and big business establishments. At a conservative estimate of P5,000 per square meter, its total value is mind-boggling.
It was in the golf course that the landowners’ woes started. After the Cebu Country Club settled a case with some claimants to a portion of the fairway, the heirs of another alleged title-holder staked their claim to another part of the property.
The case went all the way up to the Supreme Court, which decided in effect that the property belonged neither to the golf club nor to the claimant but to the Republic because the only available copies of the sales certificates and their subsequent assignments do not bear the signatures of the then secretary of the Interior and then chief of the Bureau of Public Lands, which, it was argued, was essential for their validity.
But what made matters worse was that the decision applied not only to the disputed property but to the entire estate covered by Original Certificates of Title No. 252, 252 and 253. This, to quote Enrile in his sponsorship speech, resulted “in undue uncertainty on the validity of the titles and ownership of all existing holders… when in fact there should be none.”
Unable to convince the Supreme Court to reverse their ruling, the affected landowners went to Congress for relief. Thus on June 1, 2005, del Mar filed House Bill No. 4400, “An Act Declaring and Confirming the Validity of Transfer Certificates of Title and Reconstituted Certificates of Title Covering the so-called Friar Lands Estate Situated in the First District of the City of Cebu.”
In his explanatory note, del Mar pointed out that while the only available copies of the certificates of sale and assignments of sales certificate indeed do not carry the signatures of the government officials concerned, that alone did not preclude the possibility that the original copies of these documents were signed, only that these copies were destroyed during the war.
Del Mar argued that the cloud of doubt over the validity of the certificates of title issued by the Register of Deeds of Cebu should be removed because it would cause “serious disturbance.”
“Justice and equity,” he said, “dictate the speedy enactment of a bill that would remove this cloud of doubt.”
Two years after he introduced it in Congress, del Mar’s bill became Republic Act No. 9443 after President Arroyo signed it on May 9, 2007. Less than a year later, the government’s lawyers declared their surrender, bowing to the majesty of the law.
Hopefully, all the parties can live happily ever after.
