SC allows former owners to repurchase properties

CEBU, Philippines - The Supreme Court has allowed the former owners of the Lahug airport lots to repurchase the property following the failure of the Mactan-Cebu International Airport Authority to develop the lots according to its intended purpose when these were subjected to expropriation proceedings 50 years ago.

The First Division of the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the two separate petitions for certiorari filed by the Ouanos and the Inocians seeking to repurchase or secure reconveyance of their respective properties.

In a decision penned by Associate Justice Presbitero Velasco, Jr. which was promulgated February 9, the high tribunal ruled that the MCIAA or its predecessor National Airport Corporation failed to use the lots for the expansion of the Lahug airport as agreed in the final decree of expropriation.

Following the abandonment of the Lahug Airport, a significant portion of the lots had been sold to private corporations which developed the property into a commercial complex.

Clearly, according to the court, is far from its original purpose of expropriation.

It was established by evidence that the MCIAA or NAC, through its team of negotiators, assured to the concerned landowners that they would be entitled to repurchase their lots in the event that they are no longer used for airport.

“The taking of a private land in expropriation proceedings is always conditioned on its continued devotion to its public purpose. As necessary corollary, once the purpose is terminated or peremptorily abandoned, then the former owner, if he so desires, may seek its reversion, subject of course to the return, at the very least, of the just compensation received” the court rules.  

As ordered by the SC, original owners of the nine lots were given the right to repurchase their lots. According to the court, the amount should be the same to that of the amount paid to them by the government. The registry of deeds of Cebu City is ordered to make the necessary cancellation and transfer of title back to the name of the previous owners.

However, the SC also ordered that MCIAA shall retain what ever fruits and income it may have obtained from the expropriated lots without any obligation to refund the owners.

In a consolidated petition Anunciacion, Mario, Leticia, Arnaiz all surname Ouano, and Cielo Martinez sought the nullification of the Court of Appeals (CA) decision reversing the Regional Trial Court Branch 57 decision compelling the MCIAA to return their lots.

On December 29, 1961, the then Court of First Instance of Cebu granted the expropriation of the 35 lots included in the Lahug airport. However, at the end of 1991, or soon after the transfer of the affected lots to MCIAA, the Lahug airport ceased operations after the Mactan Airport accommodated commercial flights.

The expropriated lots were never utilized for its intended purpose. This prompted the former owners to demand the return of their lots.

A separate petition was filed on February 8, 1997 by Ricardo Inocian and four other children of Isabel Limbaga who originally owned six of the lots expropriated; and Aletha Magat and seven others successors of Santiago Suico, owners of two lots before the Cebu RTC for the reconveyance of real properties and damages against MCIAA.

During trial, they presented testimonies from Asterio Uy an employee of the CAA who testified that he was a member of the team which negotiated for the acquisition of the lots in Lahug for the proposed expansion of the Lahug airport.

Uy attested that the government team of negotiators “assured the land owners that their landholding would be reconveyed to them in the event that the Lahug airport would be abandoned or if its operation were transferred to the Mactan Airport.” 

The petition was granted by the RTC on October 7, 1998. But the MCIAA appealed the decision before the CA and obtained a favorable decision prompting the former land owners to bring the case before the SC on certiorari. (FREEMAN)