Who owns Malico?
By Virginia Jasmin Pasalo
IT took twenty-nine years for Taguig to win a boundary dispute with Makati, from 22 November 1993 to 03 April 2023. In 2023, the Supreme Court affirmed Taguig’s jurisdiction over the Fort Bonifacio military reservation (including Bonifacio Global City and the ten Enlisted Men’s Barrios (EMBO) Barangays) . The court ordered Makati to stop exercising political and territorial jurisdiction over the entire Fort Bonifacio reservation and the EMBO barangays and transferred them from Makati to Taguig, including “ownership dispute of Makati-developed assets in the Embo barangays”.
The boundary dispute over Malico will go through the same arduous process. Pangasinan and Nueva Vizcaya will never give up a territory vital to their potential incomes from tourism activities. In a statement posted 05 July 2024 (pangasinan.gov.ph), Pangasinan Governor Ramon V. Guico III stood firm that Malico belongs to Pangasinan and committed to allocate P200 million for its various projects. The governor vowed in his speech during the Local Initiatives: Guidance and Assistance Program” (LINGAP ed Barangay), that “Pangasinan will never leave Malico”. He stated that he welcomes development projects that will be introduced by Nueva Vizcaya. Malico is one of the five tourism priorities of the province where infrastructure support and social services are being directed.
Governor Attorney Jose V. Gambito of Nueva Vizcaya, in a post dated 21 October 2024 (nuevavizcaya.gov.ph), asserted that the boundary dispute over Malico had already been thoroughly addressed, citing a delineation conducted by the National Mapping and Resource Information Authority (NAMRIA) of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), delineating Barangay Malico as part of Nueva Vizcaya. According to him, this delineation was the result of a mutually agreed-upon survey, formalized in a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) signed by both parties facilitated by DENR. Governor Gambito reiterated this stance following the recent creation of a task force purposely aimed at addressing the boundary issues between the two municipalities. Engr. Fe C. Lingan, Chief of the Surveys and Mapping Division of the Land Management Bureau (LMB) explained that the task force, led by LMB, includes representatives from both Pangasinan and Nueva Vizcaya.
NAMRIA is the central mapping agency of the government serving the needs of the line services of the DENR and other government offices “to provide accurate, timely and accessible topographic maps, nautical charts, and other geospatial products and services”. LMB is an “enabler of responsible land governance with policies, development plans and programs, land information, geospatial services, competency development, and technology innovations to provide tenure security towards social justice and economic development”. The LMB works closely with NAMRIA, “primarily relying on NAMRIA’s comprehensive topographic maps and geospatial data as a foundational base for conducting cadastral surveys and managing land information, effectively utilizing NAMRIA’s expertise in mapping to accurately delineate land boundaries and property ownership within the country”.
The dispute over Malico will not be decided upon by DENR alone, as there is the legal recourse available to both parties. As cited in a 2020 court decision involving dispute over public land: “The LMB does not have the wherewithal to police public lands. Neither does it have the means to prevent disorders or breaches of peace among the occupants. Its power is clearly limited to disposition and alienation and while it may decide disputes over possession, this is but in aid of making the proper awards. The ultimate power to resolve conflicts of possession is recognized to be within the legal competence of the civil courts and its purpose is to extend protection to the actual possessors and occupants with a view to quell social unrest. Consequently, while we leave it to the LMB to determine the issue of who among the parties should be awarded the title to the subject property, there is no question that we have sufficient authority to resolve which of the parties is entitled to rightful possession.”
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