SC asked to reverse ruling on Fort Boni housing

A homeowners’ association of retired military officers has asked the Supreme Court to reconsider its decision declaring as part of the Fort Bonifacio military reservation a 39.9-hectare property where their homes are located.

In its petition, the Southside Homeowners Association Inc. (SHAI) asked the SC to refer the case to the Court of Appeals for the appointment of a commissioner or a body of commissioners to determine whether the JUSMAG or Joint United States Military Assistance Group housing area lies outside the military reservation.

Lawyer Amador Brioso Jr., representing SHAI, said even if the SC decision had become final and executory, the case can still be re-opened.

Only a relocation survey could prove their argument that the questioned property indeed lies outside the Fort Bonifacio military reservation, the SHAI said.

Military officers, both retired and in active service, and their families have been occupying housing units and facilities originally constructed by the Armed Forces of the Philippines on the JUSMAG area.

On Oct. 30, 1991, the Rizal provincial register of deeds issued Transfer Certificate of Title 1508 on the basis of a notarized deed of sale covering most of, if not the entire JUSMAG area. The document was purportedly executed on the same date by then Lands Management Bureau director Abelardo Palad Jr. in favor of the SHAI.

The total purchase price as written in the coverage deed was P11,997,660 at P30 per square meter.

Court records showed that on July 12, 1957, then President Carlos Garcia issued Proclamation 423, establishing a military reservation known as Fort William McKinley, later renamed the Fort Andres Bonifacio Military Reservation.

Proclamation 423 “withdrew from sale or settlement and reserved for military purposes, under the administration of the Chief-of-Staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines …the parcels of the public domain situated in several towns and a city of what was once the province of Rizal.”

In 1992, Congress passed Republic Act 9227, the Bases Conversion and Development Act investing the BCDA the power to own, hold and administer portions of Metro Manila military camps that may be transferred to it by the President and to dispose, after the lapse of a number of months, portions of Fort Bonifacio. – Mike Frialde