Army poised to evict Jusmag occupants

The Army leadership has served eviction notices to retired military and police officers occupying the disputed Joint United States Military Assistance Group (JUSMAG) compound at Fort Bonifacio in Taguig City, but officials kept the pre-eviction proceedings under wraps.

The eviction notices were apparently patterned after those issued by the Philippine Navy (PN), which, despite perceived legal obstacles, was able to evict retired officers and personnel overstaying at its housing facility at Fort Bonifacio.

In a guarded statement given to the media, Army chief Lt. Gen. Hermogenes Esperon said the eviction problem is internal and only between the Army and JUSMAG.

"This is an internal problem of the Army and the JUSMAG. We don’t want to discuss it. Some people might be mentioned," Esperon said.

Army spokesman Lt. Col. Bartolome Bacarro confirmed that eviction notices were served but he, too, declined to give additional details:

"It’s just mailmen serving notices of eviction. That’s nothing."

He refused to say who or how many will be evicted from the JUSMAG property, which houses, among many former top military officials, three former Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) chiefs of staff: Retired generals Roy Cimatu, Benjamin Defensor and Diomedio Villanueva.

Other occupants of the JUSMAG property include former national police chief Edgar Aglipay, former military deputy chief Ernesto Carolina, former Army Southern Luzon Command (Solcom) chief Alfonso Dagudag, former Army chief Gregorio Camiling and former Air Force Tactical Operations Command chief Melchor Rosales, who is now an undersecretary of the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG).

Cimatu is now special envoy to the Middle East while Defensor is now ambassador-at-large on counter-terrorism.

Villanueva was appointed as director of the Public Estates Authority (PEA) shortly after he retired in 2002. He was later appointed postmaster general, but he left government service in 2004.

A case on the ownership of land inside JUSMAG is pending before the Supreme Court, and it is unclear how the Army’s eviction of the JUSMAG residents will affect this case.

A group of military wives, the Southside Homeowners Association (SHE), said they bought the land for P11.9 million in 1991, but the government claims that the deed of sale and the land titles issued to SHE members were forged.

There are 106 housing units inside the 40-hectare JUSMAG, which sits on prime property in southern Metro Manila.

In a series of evictions last month, the Navy ejected some 200 overstaying retired officers and military personnel from their quarters at the Fort Bonifacio Naval Station.

Prior to the Fort Bonifacio Naval Station eviction, the Navy "issued appropriate notices to the unauthorized occupants," the official Navy website www.navy.mil.ph said in an online report.

According to the website, the Navy leadership declared the evictions in "an official act" to address the housing needs of its active personnel. "The move is expected to lift the morale and welfare of those in the active service who have been deprived of the similar benefits enjoyed by retired officers."

Navy Vice Commander and Housing Board chairman Rear Admiral Abraham Abesamis had earlier reminded retired Navy officers of the contract they signed when they were awarded the housing units.

"Under AFP rules and regulations, military personnel who have been retired, discharged and separated, have to vacate within 60 calendar days the quarters assigned them," the Navy website report said.

Abesamis had urged the occupants of the Fort Bonifacio Naval Station "to honor the contracts they signed since as senior officers, they were supposed to be the implementers of rules and regulations." He added that "these retired senior officers of ours who we revered when they were still in the active service" should live up as holders of public trust.