SC asked to stop land titling irregularities

The Office of the Solicitor General has appealed to the Supreme Court to put a stop to the massive land titling irregularities in the long-disposed of Maysilo Estate.

In a memorandum with the High Court last week, Solicitor General Alfredo L. Benipayo urged the Court to consider the Department of Justice and the Senate reports on irregularities in the Maysilo Estate in deciding related cases before it.

The government’s memorandum signed also by Assistant Solicitor General Maria Aurora Cortes and Solicitor Gabriel Francisco Ramirez Jr., sought to throw out a mandamus petition by one of the Maysilo Estate claimants.

Petitioner Fidela Angeles, one of the alleged heirs of Spanish lady Maria de la Concepcion Vidal, asked the Supreme Court to compel the government to allow the issuance of a new round of dubious titles originating from "mother title" Original Certificate of Title No. 994 registered on April 19, 1917.

The DOJ and senate reports submitted, respectively, in 1997 and 1998, found that Original Certificate of Title (OCT) No. 994 registered on April 19, 1917 is "non-existent, a fabrication" by then Registrar of Deeds Yolanda Alfonso and then Deputy Registrar Norberto Vasquez. Both had been dismissed for acting "maliciously, fraudulently and in bad faith" by issuing certifications or statements that OCT No. 994 was registered on April 19, 1917.

There is only one genuine and correct OCT 994 relevant to the Maysilo Estate and it was registered on May 3, 1917. The Senate and the DOJ said this is clearly seen on the face of the original OCT 994 being kept in the LRA vault for safekeeping.

The government said the late Senate President-Chief Justice Marcelo Fernan aptly described the Maysilo Estate titling irregularities as "the mother of all land titling scams" in the country.

"It would go down as one of the biggest and most extensive land-grabbing incidents in history," the OSG decried. It affects, it said, hundreds of landowners and homeowners, big, medium, and small, including urban poor families, in half of Caloocan City and Malabon City combined, and a portion of Quezon City. Their titles were derived from the genuine mother title, Original Certificate of Title No. 994 registered on May 3, 1917.

The DOJ under then Justice Secretary Teofisto Guingona, now Vice President of the Philippines, organized its Maysilo Estate fact-finding committee as a joint undertaking of the Department proper, the OSG and the LRA. The Senate initiated its own inquiry at the instance of Fernan, then chairman of the committee on justice and human rights. It was jointly conducted with the Senate committee on urban planning, housing and resettlement chaired by Sen. Leticia Ramos-Shahani. No less than President Arroyo when she was a Senator signed the Senate Report, together with the late Fernan, now Senate President Franklin Drilon, now Senate President Protempore Juan Flavier, Sen. Shahani, Edgardo Angara, Ernesto Maceda, and Freddie Webb.

Even government infrastructures, public highways, streets, markets and parks, including the site of stately Bonifacio Monument, a national treasure and the work of national artist Tolentino, are in danger of falling into the hands of land-grabbers. The DOJ Report listed a total of 109 National Government properties, some of which were earlier expropriated for urban poor housing and highway widening projects, and 19 Caloocan and Malabon local government properties are affected by the scam.

The Maysilo scandal, land title experts feared, would have serious implications not only for urban planning, but worse, for the national economy. Foreign investors will shy away from the country and consider other sites where the stability and integrity of land titling registration system can be depended upon for long-term operations.

Invoking the DOJ and Senate findings and standing National Government and Land Registration Authority policies against the issuance of new dubious Maysilo titles, Caloocan registrar of deeds Regulo Coloma refused in 2001 to comply with the court order to issue new titles to the alleged heirs of Spanish Maria de la Concepcion Vidal, a former co-owner of the Maysilo Estate.

Coloma stressed this position in an Oct. 22, 2001 reply to a query from an official of the Office of the First Gentleman. Danilo G. Bonifacio, another alleged heir, had complained of long delay in getting his titles from the Maysilo Estate.

Then LRA Administrator Senecio Ortile endorsed the query to Coloma. Aside from citing the DOJ and LRA policies, Coloma said that even as a registrar of deeds with a ministerial duty, he is "duty-bound not to give due course" to the court order which "would prejudice third parties or do violence to the integrity of the Torrens system. He even cited "the fact that the properties involved were already titled to third parties (other parties)."

Then Coloma assured Ortile that "without your permission and official stand on the matter, he would (not) make him an unwilling party to the consummation of an injustice or the impairment of the stability of the Torrens Title."

Last year, however, in a complete reversal and without waiting for the outcome of the mandamus case in the Supreme Court, Coloma issued a series of titles to Angeles and her alleged co-heirs. The titles covered a total of 10 hectares and 5,969 sq.m. of Maysilo lands. A big lot covered by one of the titles was reported being offered to a Cebuano businessman.