CITY WANTS CUNA TO RETURN P16-M PAYMENT

THE Dagupan City government has lost all its claims to the 29,892-hectare landholding in Barangay Awai in San Jacinto town despite its payment of P16,120,000 to seller Jose Mariano Cuna on April 11, 2002, ostensibly for the construction of a sanitary landfill for the city during the late Mayor Benjamin Lim administration.

This was confirmed by officials of the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) who held a briefing conference last Friday, August 19, before Mayor Belen Fernandez and city legal staff on the city government’s claim of ownership, specifically for the implementation of the Agrarian Justice Delivery Program and Land Tenure Security Program of DAR.

The DAR officials led by Director IV Maria Ana Francisco called for the briefing to enforce the order of the Department of Agrarian Reform Secretary, dated August 16, 2018, finding that the subject landholding may not be granted exemption from the coverage of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP), and therefore, the city government “did not acquire valid land title to the subject landholding” and that the same “is agriculturally developed”.

The order, in response to the petition of Dagupan City for exemption of the landholdings from CARP coverage for lack of merit, directed the Municipal Agrarian Program  Officer (MARPO) of San Jacinto and the Provincial Agrarian Reform Program Officer (PARPO) “to proceed with the acquisition and distribution of the property under CARP”.

The questioned landholding was sold by Cuna to the Dagupan City government during the Lim administration on April 11, 2002 for P16,120,000, just four months after he bought the same from Estrella Sangalang for P7,000,000 on December 8, 2001.

But when Cuna bought the property from Sangalang, the 31 farmers that were tilling the land filed a petition for redemption against both Cuna and Sangalang, as well as the Land Bank of the Philippines, before the Regional Agrarian Reform Adjudicator of the Department of Agrarian Reform Arbitration Board (DARAB), Region 1.

It was only on September 25, 2007 when the city government, under then Mayor Alipio Fernandez Jr., filed a letter-request seeking the exemption for coverage under CARP on the ground that the subject landholding has a slope of 18 percent or more and that the subject landholding is mainly barren and idle land unsuitable for agriculture.

DAR Region 1denied the petition for exemption for lack of merit . The city filed a motion for reconsideration but was again denied.

The second denial resulted in the DAR Secretary ultimately issuing an order that the subject landholding may not be granted exemption from CARP coverage.

On December 9, 2019, the Office of the Director of the Agrarian Legal Assistance issued a Certificate of Finality relative to the Order (of the Secretary) dated 16 August 2018.

After the conference, some city hall officials suggested that Cuna be compelled to return the money paid to him since no land title was turned over as result of the failed legal efforts to claim it as a property of the city government. (Leonardo Micua)

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