Property boom threatens Philippine schools

MANILA (AFP) - A property boom threatens thousands of public schools across the Philippines by targeting the land they sit on for redevelopment, the government said Monday.

Philanthropists donated the sites for a number of schools but their heirs have gone to court to reclaim them to cash in on the building boom, the environment and natural resources department said.

"Greed. It's another kind of disaster facing the country's public school system," it said in a statement.

The government agency said it was working with the education department so that 5,132 public schools obtain the titles to the land they sit on.

"The problem had been swept under the rug for a long time," Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Angelo Reyes said.
"Solving this problem confronting our public schools sites should have been done a long time ago."

Education Secretary Jesli Lapus estimated that there could be land ownership questions for more than 10,000 of the government's 43,000 public school sites.

About 8,000 school sites are untitled and covered by deeds of donation only. Some of the sites were donated as long ago as after World War II and by law donations can be recalled.

"These threatened school sites are now classified as prime lots located in the poblacions (population centres)," Lapus said.

"Now we are getting claims by heirs of donors of these lots, especially those that are not covered with titles."

The two government agencies said they had set up a fund to obtain special rights to the school sites so that they can only be used for educational purposes.