[ Manila Bulletin Online ] October 30, 2008
Secretary Lito Atienza of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) has suspended a DENR official in Southern Luzon, along with seven others, in connection with the issuance of 25 free patents covering 63.96 hectares of public land in Tanay, Rizal, in 2006 and 2007 despite orders given earlier to cancel the processing of the applications for the areas in question.
Placed under a 90-day preventive suspension effective Oct. 20, 2008, were Lino Rustia, DENR Provincial Environment and Natural Resources Officer (PENRO) for Rizal; Salvador Labriaga, chief, Patent and Deeds Section, DENR-Region 4A; Ildefonso F. Cortez Jr., Land Management Inspection, DENR-PENRO-Rizal; Aguinaldo Lugayan, Forester II, DENR Community Environment and Natural Resources Office (CENRO)-Antipolo; Mario A. Lantican, chief, Utilization Unit, CENRO-Antipolo; Salvador M. Carriedo Jr., Cartographer II, CENRO-Antipolo; Armando R. Abayari, Engineering Aide I, CENRO-Antipolo; and Jesus F. Pampellona, Land Investigator Inspector, CENRO-Antipolo.
Atienza saod land issues form bulk of the complaints and requests for action presented to him during his People’s Hour. "From Manila to Visayas and way down to Mindanao, people are seeking my attention on delayed or skewed disposition of land issues," Atienza said.
In this particular land issue, he said, there appeared to be disregard of express or implied directions and refusal to obey reasonable orders of superior or higher authority.
He ordered the immediate creation of a fact-finding team to dig deeper into the case to determine what other administrative and possible criminal liabilities the eight may be answerable to.
In December 2005, then DENR Undersecretary Armando De Castro ordered the immediate cancellation of the ASP granted to Kabalat Farmers pursuant to a decision of the Regional Trial Court Branch 78 of Morong, Rizal.
The case stemmed from a free patent application of a farmers’ group called Kabalat involving an area of 81 hectares but was later found to have been "padded" to as much as 300 hectares in the ASP issued to Kabalat, prompting DENR Undersecretary Manuel Gerochi, in February, 2004, to call the attention of DENR-Region 4A on the padding of the areas and reiterated his two orders issued on Aug. 14 and 20, 2003, to eject the illegal occupants in the area.
The same area was also the subject of an order issued by Gerochi’s brother, then-DENR Secretary Joemari Gerochi in February, 2001 directing the DENR officials in Region 4 to cease and desist from issuing and approving any tenurial instruments like free patent within the area, citing that it was part of the Marikina Watershed Reservation.
The order was again reiterated by former DENR Secretary Heherson Alvarez in April, 2002, suspending the grant of tenurial instrument within the area.
Records, however, show that between July 2006 and June 2007, the PENRO approved 25 free patents whose processing and issuance were based on the ASP that was supposed to have been cancelled as ordered in De Castro’s December, 2005, memorandum.
