Monday, July 30, 2007 Ledesma: Tax fraud and land scam? By Jun Ledesma Sunbursts
BELIEVE IT or not, one of the biggest malls in Davao City stands on a prime real estate, about 12 hectares by my estimate, which was sold only for P1.4 million!
My 250-square meter property, which is not far from the mall, even costs more!
How this was made possible defies imagination. How this passed the Bureau of Internal Revenue, City Assessor's Office, and the Register of Deeds is a feat that could make a good mystery novel.
This involves a classic art of necromancy that, if turned into a book and movie, will be a best seller.
This is utterly unfair. Imagine I paid more taxes to the government when I acquired my small piece of property when my salary then was less than what my publisher is paying me per column now.
Since the government is scrounging for money and making all the dire effort to balance the budget deficit, why don't they look at this unconscionable anomaly?
There is substantial amount of tax deficiency for the picking here. And if the Arroyo administration is really determined to run after the crooks, this is one case that can really make good headline and some heads rolling.
This is one case where the City Government can collect not a small amount for its coffers and publicly guillotine those involved in this broad daylight robbery.
But this land scam is not only about taxes. It is about the government losing valuable real estate to claimants who are not entitled even an inch of the land they said they owned.
My misfortune is that I do not know the background of how a vast track of land was titled to an alien.
But my fortune is that I was a buyer in good faith and therefore I will be able to keep that which I bought.
My misfortune is that it may take a lifetime to redeem what I paid but my fortune is that within my lifetime I got a glimpse of the intricate web of legal and illegal machination which was conceived to obfuscate what could be the most shocking hoax contrived by so few but had victimized so many.
It is a long drawn legal battle that involves legitimacy of ownership, authenticity of documents, perjury and cover-ups.
I still cannot distill the facts from farce because the recitation of facts and the legal travesty is like a maze designed to confuse those in the askance and in their confusion gave up in ennui.
But despite the years that had elapsed there is one person who fought on, goaded by the challenge and humiliation he was subjected to by people he believed are not and should not be entitled to own a piece of land in Philippine soil.
Last July 13, 2007 he finally won a protracted battle.
DENR, I learned, has initially given the clearance that survey should proceed immediately on the land claimed by the person I am not prepared to name as yet.
That the DENR has given clearance for the survey presupposes that the land is public land. If such is the case, then what worth is the title, if at all there is one, and all its derivatives?
This is a potential Pandora's box. I am not abetting the hornets to roost and nest and neither am I stirring one. But I can feel the restiveness of some and am certain that between now and a few tomorrows a big land scam will be unearthed and you too will believe in silence that what I write is true.
