Ex-senator warns veep on city land mess

FORMER Senator Aquilino Pimentel Jr. has called on Vice President Jejomar Binay not to provide funds for relocation sites under the controversial one-peso-per lot program in Cagayan de Oro City.

Binay heads the Housing and Urban Development Coordination Council (HUDCC), which Mayor Vicente Emano said will fund the construction of low-cost housing units on areas under “piso-piso”, a land resettlement program started by the first Emano administration in 1998.

Under the program, parcels of land bought by the local government through bank loans are sold to landless families at a negligible P1.

The program has come under fire, however, over allegations of overpricing in land purchases and for being disadvantageous to the government.

Beneficiaries, too, had yet to receive their land titles. A case questioning the legality is pending before the Ombudsman.

These entanglements, Pimentel said, should convince Binay not to “get mixed up with an evidently corrupt transaction.”

“If the housing board that you now lead takes over this ill-conceived, ill-acquired and illegal so-called housing project of Mayor Emano as charged by complainants, it would be unnecessarily embroiled in the cases that had been filed against the mayor and other people responsible for the anomalous acquisition of the land,” the former senator told the vice president in a letter last Wednesday, a copy of which was furnished to Sun.Star Cagayan de Oro. 

Emano earlier touted a planned partnership between City Hall and HUDCC, in which the local government will provide lots where the housing agency would build “cheap but decent” housing units for the poor. Each unit will be amortized for P340 per month, the mayor said. 

While this may be advantageous to the administration, Pimentel warned Binay that the entry of HUDCC in the existing relocation sites would only “validate” or “legally cover up” the controversial land program.

Emano has repeatedly denied allegations attached to the ‘piso-piso’ program, which he said has helped provide lots for thousands of irregular settlers in the city. 

State auditors had earlier found the land program disadvantageous.

Because the lots are sold way below their market value, the Commission on Audit (COA) said this effectively deprived the city of funds to buy lands for other beneficiaries. 

COA also said the program was discriminatory, as beneficiaries of previous land resettlement programs were charged according to market value.

Evangeline Ngayan, team leader of the COA unit that audited the ‘piso-piso’ program in 2004, said she had not encountered a situation in her 24 years of auditing career in which lots are sold at P1. 

Meanwhile, the program’s beneficiaries, who are barred from selling the awarded lots, had yet to receive their Transfer Certificate of Titles by the first Emano administration.

Presently, not a single deed of sale for the P1 purchase has been executed, and recipients were only issued certificates as proof of ownership. 

Emano had earlier defended the delayed distribution of land titles, saying the titling process could take a little longer than usual considering the thousands of settlers registered under the program. 

But Emano’s critics, including Pimentel, noted that the issuance of land titles could not have been possible because City Hall used the relocation sites as collaterals in several bank loans. 

Emano’s administration has also been hounded with allegations of overpricing in the purchase of at least 63 hectares of land where the present Calaan Relocation Site is located. 

Based on City Ordinance 6647-98, the local government bought the three parcels of lots at P160 per square meter, or a total price of over P101 million. In 2004, then Acting City Treasurer testified in a City Council inquiry that the owners of the lots, Araceli R. Pascual, PN Roa Realty Corporation, and Fortunato Venegas, were only paid over P49 million, or a difference of around P51 million. 

Emano and other officials are facing a case before the Ombudsman regarding this transaction. The mayor had earlier said he would resign if proven that the lots had been overpriced. 

Pimentel and Binay are both stalwarts of PDP-Laban, which coalesced with the Partido ng Masang Pilipino of ex-president Joseph Estrada in the last elections.

Emano's PaDayon Pilipino was affiliated with PMP but severed ties with it after the May 10 elections over allegations that Estrada had abandoned Emano's group in the last minute.

Trending

No stories found.

Just in

No stories found.

Branded Content

No stories found.
SunStar Publishing Inc.
www.sunstar.com.ph