Lawmaker: Officials coddling professional squatters should be meted harsh punishment

MANILA, Philippines - Government officials protecting and coddling professional squatters should be prosecuted and suffer more penalties under the law, a senior lawmaker proposed yesterday.

In filing House Bill 1649, Manila Rep. Amado Bagatsing also proposed to amend the provisions of the Urban Development Housing Act of 1992 (RA 7279), which he said, has “become outmoded.”

Bagatsing, who used to be a lead personality on the national drive against professional squatting and squatting syndicates, said there are many loopholes in RA 7279 that it gave the opportunity for professional squatters and their coddlers in the government to defeat its purpose.

The Manila lawmaker urged to give more teeth to the law by providing more severe jail terms to professional squatters and their coddlers in the government. Bagatsing said a new breed of squatters no longer stay in shanties and in squalid conditions but live in luxury in permanent concrete structures.

“These squatters are protected by syndicates; they are not the kind of squatters which RA 7279 tries to protect,” he said. “In many cases, the poor ones are victimized by these syndicates, by selling rights to a land not their own, or sometimes resorting to ‘land for free’ schemes in order to attract people to invade lands,” Bagatsing said.

Bagatsing led a team in arresting a suspected leader of a big squatting syndicate only to find out that he had been released Monday on bail. In another instance, Bagat­sing said a suspected member of a squatting syndicate used all of his connections in government to escape prosecution.

To remedy the situation, Bagat­sing proposed to increase the prison term for convicted professional squatters or members of squatting syndicates from six years to 10 years, and to increase the fine from P60,000 to P100,000.

Bagatsing proposed to impose the penalty of 12 years imprisonment and a fine of P100,000 to P500,000 to any government official allowing professional squatters. He also proposed to amend a provision of RA 7279 that establishes as prima facie evidence of squatting or membership to a squatting syndicate in the use of fake and spurious land titles.

The lawmaker also sought to penalize the creation of associations or organizations to collect membership fees to allow squatters to stay on a land by which its title has been declared void by the court.