More land owners get back titles in QC

Quezon City Mayor Feliciano Belmonte Jr. distributed yesterday 30 more newly-reconstituted land titles to their owners, 17 years after a fire at City Hall destroyed the vital documents.

This brought to more than 12,000 the total number of titles which have been reconstituted by the Land Registration Authority since the task was transferred to the agency from the Local Registry of Deeds a decade ago.

Belmonte, citing land titles as a form of economic power, called on recipients to take good care of their titles.

The mayor also reiterated his call for landowners, whose land titles were damaged by the city hall fire, to claim their reconstituted titles at the Land Registration Authority on East Avenue in Quezon City during office hours.

Lawyer Elbert Quilala, acting head of QC Registry of Deeds, said the reconstituted titles would be turned over to owners upon surrender of a duplicate copy of the old title. Should owners fail to produce a duplicate copy, a court order is required to establish ownership.

The third batch of recipients came from Barangay Tatalon, having fully paid for National Housing Authority-owned land they have been occupying for years.

The recipients were led yesterday by former undersecretary of Agriculture Adolfo "Benny" Pecson.

Of the 400,000 titles registered in their office, Quilala said, only about 20,000 were saved from the fire that hit the top floors of the main City Hall building on June 16, 1988. – Pamela Samia