UP downplays claim on TechnoHub land

MANILA, Philippines – The University of the Philippines has stood by its ownership of the land along Commonwealth Ave. in Quezon City being leased to Ayala Land, refuting the claim of two private persons over the 78-hectare property had again reached the Supreme Court. Lawyer and Prof. Theodore Te, UP’s vice president for legal affairs, said the petition of Jorge Chin and Renato Mallari seeking to nullify a resolution of the SC in Nov. 2003 granting the land to UP does not hold merit as the decision of the High Court on the property dispute was already final. “We will file our comment to the petition, but I think even from a cursory glance there is no merit in that,” Te told The STAR.

Te explained that UP’s ownership of the land covering the UP – Ayala TechnoHub was categorically upheld by the High Court in its Sept. 8, 2004 ruling on a separate petition filed by another private person, Domingo Canero.

The SC decision, penned by then Associate Justice and now Chief Justice Reynato Puno, told “courts and unscrupulous lawyers to stop entertaining spurious cases seeking further to assail respondent UP’s title.”

“These cases open the dissolute avenues of graft to unscrupulous land-grabbers who prey like vultures upon the campus of respondent UP.”

“By such actions, they wittingly or unwittingly aid the hucksters who want to earn a quick buck by misleading the gullible to buy the Philippine counterpart of the proverbial London Bridge.

It is well past time for courts and lawyers to cease wasting their time and resources on these worthless causes and take judicial notice of the fact that respondent UP’s title had already been validated countless times by this Court.

Any ruling deviating from such doctrine is to be viewed as a deliberate intent to sabotage the rule of law and will no longer be countenanced,” the ruling stated.

Te argued that the SC decision on the case of Canero also applies to the case of Chin and Mallari. He stressed that UP solidly supports its partnership with Ayala Land Inc. in the development and operation of the TechnoHub, adding that the university is studying legal options to protect its interests on its property.

Annual resolution

Canero had claimed ownership on the 5,000-sq. meter lot covered by TCT No. RT-57204 (240042) of the Registry of Deeds of Quezon City. But the SC ruled that it belongs to UP.

In their petition Apr. 30, Chin and Mallari asked the SC to annul its resolution that granted to UP the same land being claimed by Canero.

The petitioners, whose ownership on the property was upheld in February 2000 but taken back in November 2003 by the same division of the High Court, decried what they described as “extrinsic fraud and grave injustice” in the revocation of their titles. In a 63-page petition, Chin and Mallari argued that the 2003 resolution of the SC Special First Division should be declared void because the 2000 decision was already final and executory.

In its 2000 decision, justices of the SC division unanimously granted ownership of the contested land to Chin and Mallari, who bought their titles from the heirs of Antonio Pael, and junked the claim of Pedro Destura, who claimed he bought the property from a Pael family representative. But two years later, the SC granted the property to UP.

The turnaround was brought about when the SC remanded the case to the CA in December 2001 to resolve which title – that of the petitioners or that of the university – overlapped the property of the other.

The CA, in its July 2003 report to the SC, upheld the findings of the verification and relocation survey conducted by Department of Environment and Natural Resources the showing that properties under the title of UP (Transfer Certificate of Title 9462) overlapped the properties of Chin and Mallari (TCTs 52928 and 52929). It was also found that the titles of the petitioners were issued in 1938 while those of UP in 1949, or 11 years later.

But the SC division, according to petitioners, had “misapprehended” the findings of the DENR and CA and was misled by UP in ruling that the titles of Chin and Mallari overlapped those of the state university.

Lawyer Prospero Anave, representing Chin and Mallari, said the SC “should not have reversed the CA report” because the High Court “is not a trier of facts.”

Anave argued that the High Court division relied solely on the interpretation of UP on the results of the DENR survey without taking into consideration the clarification issued by their reviewer, DENR assistant regional executive director for legal services Rogelio Tiongson, who said it was the property of UP that overlapped the property of petitioners.

In their petition seeking to reclaim the property, Chin and Mallari claimed that the Supreme Court was only misled when it awarded the land to UP in a resolution in Nov. 2003.

A final verification survey report of DENR National Capital Region dated Jan. 16, 2003, copy of which was obtained by The STAR, showed that the contested property was a case of “overlapping.”

“That when plotted through their respective tie lines, the property of Jorge Chin and Renato Mallari described on TCT Nos. 52928 and 52929 falls inside and is entirely within the property covered by TCT Nos. RT – 107359 (192689), RT – 107350 (192686), RT – 58201 (192687) and RT – 57441 (192688) registered in the name of the University of the Philippines,” stated the DENR report of the nine-man team led by geodetic Engr. Cholita Ortega.

This was, however, interpreted by the first division of the SC as proof that it was Chin and Mallari who overlapped the property of UP.