A new profession at UP – squatting

University of the Philippines alumni who trooped to Diliman to elect officers last week were taken aback by a signpost at the edge of the campus. On the bucolic Arboretum of their teenage memories was a proclamation: "Keep out! Property of Abdul Raof Dimaporo." Now how did a plot of trees and shrubs for scientific study become a private preserve? Did UP officials give away the lush area that was once for experiment and display?

Comes the latest issue of UP Newsletter with the answer. The premier state university appears to have sprung a new profession: squatting. Since February over 400 people, mostly refugees from the war in Mindanao, have invaded and occupied the Arboretum, a prime piece of university property and Metro Manila’s last remaining natural forest. UP-Diliman authorities, backed by Quezon City Hall and policemen, have evicted them at least four times. But since the 60-man UP Security Department cannot guard the area round the clock, the intruders kept coming back. The last time they did, in April, they came armed with rifles and a restraining order from a Quezon City judge. Since then, the UP’s hands have been tied, and the police and city officials can only wait for a break in the case.

How the squatters were able to get a writ of preliminary injunction from Judge Rogelio Pizarro is one for the books. The Supreme Court had long cautioned lower courts against such arbitrary issuances. More than that, the Tribunal had ruled more than ten years ago that the Arboretum, a prime target of land-grabbers, is UP property. In that ruling, it declared as spurious the title held by one Antonio Pael.

For some strange reason, Luis Menor, a former UP security guard, entered the scene claiming he had bought from Pael the Arboretum and the adjoining lot of the National Hydraulics Research Center. The ownership papers he presented to court were mere portions of pleadings used by Pael in the long-settled Tribunal case. Menor claimed he initially sold the land to Jorge Chin and Renato Mallari for an astounding P150 million, which raises doubts on how much he earlier paid Pael from his security guard’s earnings. Chin and Mallari coughed up only P1 million, he said, so he sold 40 percent of the area to Dimaporo. In turn Dimaporo subdivided the land and, feeding on their desperation and gullibility, sold rights to refugees for P15,000 and ownership for P100,000. A sign advertises rush sales of lots at 40-percent discount.

Chin and Mallari ran to court to contest Menor’s sale to Dimaporo. UP lawyers interposed objections to their overlapping but spurious claims. The legal tussle continues. But damage to the Arboretum has been done.

At first only about 200 squatters set up lean-tos and marked their plots with nylon twines and twigs. When authorities first drove them away on March 31, the area was cleaned up and restored. They returned in bigger numbers, and resisted demolition crews in vain with rocks and bottles on April 2 and 14. On April 22 more than 400 marched to the area with a writ of injunction to stop "acts of dispossessing or evicting plaintiffs (Menor and Dimaporo), their families, and relatives." Since then, they have cut down trees, cleared their plots, and built houses of concrete. They also fenced off the area with barbed wire and steel sheets.

UP-Diliman Chancellor Emerlinda Roman tried to reason with the squatters, offering them transportation to relocate. Menor and Dimaporo turned her down and dug in. The UP administration has been seeking a humane, nonviolent solution. "A head-on confrontation with the group would most likely result in deaths, Roman said. "We don;t want any life wasted over this issue." But UP authorities dealing with the squatters have been receiving death threats. One time, the intruders doused a UP guard with gasoline and threatened to light him up. Another time, a police car was shot at. On the night of the UP alumni election, as if in a show of force, the squatters fired several shots in the air. One of two UP regents from Mindanao who also talked with them gave up and reported, "Violence is the only language they understand."

UP authorities are studying their next moves with City Hall and the police. More so since the writ was issued only to Chin and Mallari, and to Maj. Bernie Baltazar as head of a UP task force on squatting. Something’s gotta give. Meanwhile, UP president Francisco Nemenzo is calling on the faculty, students, alumni and legitimate residents to help save the campus from professional squatters. "This is not a case of denying homes to the urban poor," he says. "We are up against a syndicate, armed with a fake title, that wants to grab a piece of our campus by exploiting the credulity of refugees from the war in Mindanao."

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Speaking of UP, the dean of its law school, Raul Pangalangan, has been renominated to a vacancy in the Supreme Court. This is the third time that the Judicial and Bar Council – composed of the Chief Justice, secretary of justice, a retired justice, a law dean, a private lawyer, a senator and a congressman – is recommending him to President Gloria Arroyo. Four others are in the latest shortlist.

Pangalangan entered the UP law faculty a year after graduating in 1983. He became dean in 1999, the same year he joined the Tribunal’s committee on legal education and bar matters. Although an educator, his heart has always been in legal research, particularly in international law, human rights, and justice in the Third World. He obtained his masters and doctorate from Harvard.

One would think that, at 48, Pangalangan might be too young to be consigned to a Siberia posting at the Supreme Court. Then again, he could represent in the Tribunal the judicial aspirations of majority of Filipinos who belong to the below-50 generation.

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