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Contested lot found invalid

Sunday, July 06, 2008 [ sunstar.com.ph ]
By Rimaliza Opiña


A FACT-finding team of the Department of the Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) has recommended cancellation of the title issued by the agency to a businessman when it learned the property should not have been disposed for private use.

The committee headed by lawyer Joseph Humiding, with Cleo Sabado-Andrada, Gilbert Mangliwan and Evelyn Wales as members, resolved three issues raised against the 360 square meter lot at Chuntug Street owned by businessman Yu Hwa Ping.

The committee has to answer on whether the lot falls within the City Hall reservation, if it is within the road-right-of-way and if the title is valid.

But the Committee of Surveyors created by then mayor now Baguio Representative Mauricio Domogan said the lot covered by OCT P-2607 does not fall within the Baguio City Hall reservation under Proclamation 62, series of 1925.

The team also said the consistent resolve of the District Engineering Office of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DWPH) in opposing the lot's award is an indication the area falls within the RROW.

Based on reports from the DPWH, the area was also reserved for road widening purposes, the team said.

It also said there was no presidential proclamation reclassifying the area as alienable and disposable.

And even if the area was classified as A&D, this should not have been issued to a private applicant making the title irregularly issued.

Last year, initial stages of construction commenced. Complaints lodged by tenants from a nearby building, the issuance of a cease and desist order from the Office of the Mayor and the absence of a building permit, prompted Yu Hwa Ping to stop the construction, until all issues have been resolved.

But Yu Hwa Ping's lawyer, Teopisto Rondez said his client’s title is legal.

The committee also said regardless of the series of letter-oppositions and even before the findings of the Commission of Surveyors the townsite sales application of Yu Hwa Ping was cleared by AO (Administrative Order) 504 Clearing Committee.

"Such will give an impression that whatever is the result of the survey, it will then be considered moot and academic because the TSA of Mr. Yu Hwa Ping had already been cleared six months prior to the issuance of Administrative Order 69," a portion of the report stated.

Yu Hwa Ping's title was issued a clearance in March 1998. AO 69 is the order, issued by Domogan creating the Committee of Surveyors.

The team also said despite the restrictions imposed in the order of award, these were not carried over in the original title, which was registered in the Registry of Deeds (ROD).

Vertical infrastructure is prohibited in the area. If any development is done this is limited as driveway, landscape and gardening.

The title registered in the ROD does not contain these conditions.

A two-storey parking building is reportedly planned for the area.

"We find and so recommend that there are sufficient grounds to petition, through the Office of the Solicitor General, the cancellation of TCT 79759 issued in the name of Yu Hwa Ping and the reversion of the area as a RROW of Chuntug Street," the committee said.

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