Airport lands target of R-O-W conmen

Fraudsters who prey on road rights-of-way are so entrenched in government. It would take the President to uproot them.

Land titles are falsified on genuine forms, complete with security numbers and markings. Syndicates go all the way up at the Land Registration Authority, attached to the Dept. of Justice. The counterfeits are even filed in microfilm with the genuine.

The Dept. of Public Works and Highways plots the exact routes of road works, and lots to be expropriated for R-O-W. Consolidators buy the lots from small owners, and bloat the area through LRA contacts. Mere 100-square-meter farms are resized to several hectares (1 hectare = 10,000 square meters). DPWH district, regional, and national officials certify the false data to speed up payments to the syndicates.

Bureau of Internal Revenue field men affirm false tax payments. City and provincial assessors doctor the tax maps that identify and locate real property and business taxpayers in their locales. They are under the Dept. of Finance.

Local registers of deeds list bloated land values of bogus land sizes. They are appointees of governors and mayors, in turn overseen by the Dept. of Interior and Local Government.

The Dept. of Budget and Management clears the payments and sends funds to the field.

Government banks irregularly pay out cash to the consolidators, instead of checks for deposit to payees’ accounts. The consolidators hold special powers of attorney to collect in behalf of small lot owners. That erases the money trail to the syndicate bosses. Again the Dept. of Finance supervises those banks.

Investigating Senators Dick Gordon and Manny Pacquiao plan a preliminary report on their three hearings. To be included are that the title counterfeiting and R-O-W cash payments had peaked in 2014, but went on till 2017. As well, that the LRA’s No. 3 man Ser John Pastrana, chief of micrographics, had been implicated, allegedly for affirming false titles that then-DPWH head Rogelio Singson found suspicious in 2013.

President Rody Duterte will be asked to shake up the LRA, then slash the inter-department syndicate web.

In 2013-2014 alone P8.7 billion was filched in three Mindanao regions. Most fake titles were along a 30-km highway construction from General Santos City to Digos, Davao. To compare, the 2018 government budget for R-O-W payments nationwide is P18 billion.

The scam was pulled off right when the Senate was probing bogus titles in General Santos in 2014. Sen. Koko Pimentel said then that 6,000 fakes proliferated.

One certificate, for 750 hectares, had been sold to home-appliance mogul Jimmy Tang, it was reported. Originating from the “heirs” of a landowner named Confesor, the 1956 document stated that the lot’s boundary is where the airport runway now stands. The airport master plan was drawn in 1993. How uncanny, Pimentel remarked, that the eldest heir who was 15 years old in 1956 knew exactly where the runway would be paved 37 years later. The pasture in truth is owned by the Dept. of Environment and Natural Resources, long leased to Alsons Development and Investment Corp.

Airport lands are favorite targets for scams. Supposed owners suddenly would come forward crying for recompense decades after construction. Several attempts have been made to defraud the airports in Roxas City, Capiz; Talibon, Bohol; Mamburao, Mindoro Occidental; and Cuyo, Busuanga, and Puerto Princesa, Palawan.

Through the years a task force at the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines, formerly Air Transport Office, diligently had defended the airports and compiled the R-O-W payments. The old files are precious; various courts had lost theirs to fire, flood, rot, and negligence.

In May 2017 a CAAP boss evicted the task force with its documents from its small office, and banished the chief to Puerto Princesa. Days later a “claimant” arrived to collect P73 million for a Lot No. 1331, on which the Roxas City airport terminal and tarmac were built in 1962. The con woman by chance inquired from a task force member who, remembering that someone had tried to wheedle P26 million for the same lot in 2009, told her to beat it. Records show that all Roxas City airport R-O-Ws had been settled with finality on the year of construction. The woman instead went to see the evicting CAAP higher-up.

Were the forcible eviction and fraudulent collection coincidental? Or have the syndicates penetrated the Dept. of Transportation too?

The General Santos scams involved R-O-Ws around the airport, Gordon says. One racketeer, Roberto Catapang, turned state witness when his bodyguard was slain. Another, consolidator William Uy, pointed to siblings Wilma and Chino Mamburam, the latter a retired police colonel, during a Senate hearing. The names of Quezon City restaurateur Nelson Ti and former President Noynoy Aquino’s sisters came up.

Complaints have been filed with the Ombudsman concerning the Gen-San stretch of highway R-O-Ws. Scams elsewhere need exposing. The syndicates are preparing for the next round. R-O-Ws are being faked this early for government export zones, highways, sea and airports to be built under the forthcoming Bangsamoro Basic Law.

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The UP Sigma Kappa Pi Fraternity, with UP Barkada, sponsors a tournament at Valley Golf & Country Club on Thursday, June 7. Exciting prizes and giveaways await players, including a Vespa scooter for a hole-in-one. The scooter will be raffled away if no one wins it on the fairway. Registration starts 6:30 a.m.; shotgun tee-off at 8 a.m.

Tourney fee: P3,500 for guests; P2,500 for UP Barkada members; P1,500 for Valley Golf members. This covers green fee, lunch, raffle stubs, and souvenirs. Limited slots only. Early registrants may deposit fee to BDO-P. Tuazon Branch Account #008060058288 of Dante G. Gozum. For verification, please e-mail deposit slip to [email protected]. Or Viber it to +63 936 0345048 (Lheng Gonzales).

The games are part of the run-up to the UP-EKIT’s 50th anniversary in Sept. 2018.

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Catch Sapol radio show, Saturdays, 8-10 a.m., DWIZ (882-AM).

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