Some unfair and unjust acts and omissions of government only come to light when public interest is aroused. One is the case of the famous Arlegui property decided way back in October 2007 which is now very much back in the news because it is one of the properties being considered as residence of the incoming President.
The original owner of said property containing an area of 4,924 square meters situated at 1440 Arlegui St. San Miguel, Manila, near Malacanang was Tarcila Laperal Mendoza married to Perfecto Mendoza as shown in Transfer Certificate of Title (TCT) No. 118527. On this lot now stands the Presidential Guest House which is undergoing renovation for possible home of incoming President Noynoy.
How the property was acquired by the government highlights one of the many excesses and abuses committed during the Marcos Martial Law regime that remains unredressed up to now allegedly because of adherence to “due process of law”.
The evidence adduced during the hearing of the case filed in 1999 by Mendoza after the government has been declared in default for repeated failure to answer her complaint, adequately shows that: (1) since time immemorial, Mendoza and her predecessors-in-interest had been in peaceful and adverse possession of the property and the owner’s duplicate of the title; (2) such possession continued until the first week of July 1975 when a group of armed men representing themselves as members of the Presidential Security Group of the then President Marcos forcible entered the property and ordered Mendoza to turn over to them her copy of the TCT and compelled her and members of her household to vacate the same; (3) thus, out of fear for their lives Mendoza handed over the TCT and vacated the property; (4) thereafter a fictitious Deed of Sale purportedly executed although never actually signed by the spouses Mendoza was drawn up and used as basis for the cancellation of their TCT and the issuance of a new TCT 118911 in the name of the Republic.
While the lower court decided in favor of Mendoza on August 27, 2003, the case still reached the Supreme Court (SC) because the Republic ironically invokes the deprivation of due process. The SC however said that no such deprivation occurred. The court explained that being deprived of a hearing, does not mean that the right to due process had been violated not only because the “handling solicitor squandered the Republic’s right to be heard”, but more importantly because “the law itself imposes such deprivation of the right to participate as a form of penalty against one unwilling without justification to join issue upon the allegations tendered by the plaintiff” (Mendoza).
The SC also ruled that the evidence adduced in the lower court adequately supports a conclusion that the Office of the President during Marcos time wrested possession of the property in question and somehow secured a certificate of title over it without a deed of conveyance having been executed. Accordingly, the SC said that granting Mendoza’s basic plea for recovery of the Arlegui property which was legally hers all along, and the reinstatement of her cancelled certificate of title are legally correct as they are morally right.
The SC only found to be erroneous the monetary award of P1.624 billion particularly the P500,000 monthly rental from 1975. The SC said that since the property had an assessed value of P2.3 million only as Mendoza herself declared; that when martial law regime took over it has no new imposing structure; and that it had minimal rental during the relatively long martial law years, given the very restrictive entry and egress conditions at the vicinity at that time and even after, an award of P20,000 a month for the use and occupancy of the property is reasonable and may be granted. So the SC ordered the Republic to pay Mendoza P20,000 a month beginning 1975 until it vacates the same and the possession thereof restored to Mendoza plus interest of 6% per annum on the total amount due upon the finality of the decision until fully paid (Republic vs. Hidalgo etc, et.al. G.R. 161657, October 4, 2007).
Mendoza’s case is not an isolated one. Another lady, Lourdes Paez Villa was deprived of her land with an area of 3,720 square meters way back in 1972 when the government took it away from her for the construction of the Marikina-Infanta road without instituting expropriation proceedings. After more than 30 years of claiming just compensation, the Republic through the DPWH finally agreed to compensate her by paying the assessed value of the land and rent with interest until fully paid. This was evidenced by a Deed of Absolute sale dated December 20, 2001. Up to now however, 38 years later, DPWH has not yet fully paid the value of the land much less any rental due as stipulated in the Deed giving all sorts of flimsy and shallow excuses. It is hoped that under the new administration, this unfair and unreasonable acts and omissions will be finally corrected and justice rendered with dispatch to our hapless citizens like Mendoza and Villa. The delays in giving them justice are circumstances where corruption thrives best.
Note: Books containing compilation of my articles on Labor Law and Criminal Law (Vols. I and II) are now available. Call tel. 7249445.
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E-mail at: jcson@pldtdsl.net