Land-grabbers defy senator, Malacañang

Gloria Arroyo’s lawyer Romy Macalintal ironically offers her accusers the best argument to go after her with a Truth Commission. That is, to ask the Supreme Court’s to be consistent.

One reason given by ten of 15 justices in declaring the Commission unconstitutional is its creation by mere presidential edict. Supposedly only Congress has power to form a probe body that can subpoena persons and documents. For instance, the generals and papers involved in Arroyo’s alleged election rigging in 2004. But Macalintal, Arroyo’s lawyer in that presidential run, recalls an SC ruling to the contrary. In his case to have the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET) declared illegal, the SC unanimously decided last month it has power to form commissions. So if the judiciary can coin investigative bodies without congressional fiat, so can the executive.

Macalintal is contesting the existence of the PET since, unlike the Senate and House Electoral Tribunals, it is not in the Charter. What is mentioned is that the SC en banc shall hear election protests involving the Presidency and Vice Presidency. But the Chief Justice draws salary of P150,000 a month, and associate justices P100,000, by sitting in the PET even when no case is pending.

Malacañang can use the ruling on the PET to petition the SC to reconsider its voiding of the Truth Commission. Macalintal, meanwhile, will use the SC ruling on the Commission to bolster his own motion for reversal of the PET ruling.

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Another reader denounces a group that is claiming ownership of property in Manila inherited from his grandparents. Allegedly Rhema International Livelihood Federation Inc. filed a suit to gain his land based on Transfer Certificate of Title No. 8037.

Rhema presented two purported titles, one in Spanish, the other in English dated 1923. It claimed that the original owner, a certain Antonio Rodriguez, sold the property to one Fortunato Santiago, who resold it to Wilfredo Bhalwart. Mary Lou Bhalwart-Estrada supposedly inherited and donated it to Rhema.

But then, the digital copy of the second title, supposedly issued September 4, 1923, shows the use of correction fluid. This is on what looks like a judicial form of the Commonwealth of the Philippines, as suggested by the seal at the top of the document.

That’s odd. No Philippine court would order erasures on a land title. If corrections are to be made, the court usually directs the register of deeds to annotate the document, if not issue a new title and void the old one. Too, the Tydings-McDuffie Act of 1934 created the Commonwealth of the Philippines in 1935. There was no commonwealth in 1923.

Deeper research yielded odder info. “Heirs” of Antonio Rodriguez and Fortunato Santiago are parties to a suit claiming ownership of over 500,000 hectares of land in Metro Manila, Laguna, Quezon, Cavite, Batangas and Bulacan. The case is related to that of one Julian Tallano, who claims to have inherited the entire Philippines from his ancestors.

Rhema might have filed its “titles” with the Land Registration Authority, the distressed reader worries. He has reason to fret, for the case could drag and disenfranchise his heirs, like what happened to the Manotok compound. Recently in the celebrated land case, the Supreme Court reverted to the State cleanly titled land in Diliman, Quezon City that happened to be counterclaimed by two latecomers.

I suggest that the reader check with the LRA if the new claimant to his Manila property is connected to Henry and Certeza Rodriguez. The spouses lead the so-called Rodriguez syndicate that managed to elude arrest in 2002. Tallano, who claims to be a prince directly descended from Rajah Soliman, heads what authorities tag the Tallano-Acop land grabbing-squatting syndicate. Ex-President Gloria Arroyo had issued an executive order to stem the activities of these groups. But aside from the fact that they have not been arrested, they file lawsuits and use their court documents to victimize clueless victims.

Mary Lou Bhalwart-Estrada, boss of Rhema, recently filed plunder and land grabbing raps against Sen. Manny Villar. She claims that the latter and his real estate development companies received right-of-way compensation for the C-5 extension project when Rhema allegedly is the rightful owner of the properties. Estrada also used TCT No. 8037 under the name of Fortunato Santiago as proof of her ownership.

It seems that these groups are not afraid of an executive order or incumbent senator. What more ordinary property owners? The National Police’s failure to nab the notorious gang men is only part of the reason they are so bold.

In 1975 a Pasay City court upheld the claim of the Rodriguez-Santiago “heirs” to the more than 500,000 hectares of Greater Manila. Conveniently, the records of such decision were lost to a fire at the Pasay City Hall. Similarly the claimants to the Manotok land emerged after a fire razed the registry of deeds at the Quezon City Hall in 1987.

If you were a sly realtor fallen on hard times, wouldn’t you attempt a land scam because of the fair chance that the police will never be able to arrest you or that the court would rule in your favor?

In 2002 squatters suddenly invaded a portion of the U.P.-Diliman campus, called the Arboretum, along Commonwealth Avenue. Tallano and Henry Rodriguez reportedly amassed millions of pesos from dozens of Maranao families so the latter could erect shanties. Then-housing czar Mike Defensor fumed: “If a syndicate had the gall to occupy a 38-hectare piece of land, a stone’s throw away from a city hall and along a busy road used by thousands of people daily, then you can just imagine how vulnerable lots hidden in obscure places can be to the evil designs of land-grabbers.” He begged Congress to pass a law that would curb land grabbing and squatting. Eight years hence there is still no such law.

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“The only problem is: who defines what is worthwhile?” Shafts of Light, Fr. Guido Arguelles, SJ

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