Mayor Fernandez will appeal CARP ruling
CITY NOT GIVING UP ON AWAI
Cuña to be asked to return P16 million
THE Dagupan City government is not giving up just yet on the 30-hectare land in barangay Awai, San Jacinto, which has been lost to the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP).
Mayor Alipio Fernandez Jr. ordered City Legal Officer George Mejia on Monday to take steps to recover the property bought during the administration of former Mayor Benjamin Lim for P16 million.
In an interview with The PUNCH, Mejia said he was directed by the mayor to first write a letter to the Provincial Agrarian Reform Officer to ask for a reconsideration of the previous order placing the entire 30-hectare property under CARP.
He admitted that the appeal would be moot if the property has already been distributed to the tenant farmers and their representatives who had filed the petition for redemption before the Department of Agrarian Reform Adjudication Board (DARAB).
That DARAB order that placed the property under the administrative compulsory coverage of CARP was dated July 3, 2003, 14 months after the city fully paid Jose Mariano Cuna for the 30-hectare land.
Mejia opined that since the resolution placing the subject landholding under the coverage of CARP had already become final and executory way back September 22, 2003, he is not optimistic about the appeal.
“The appeal will, hopefully, enable us to submit evidence for determining the just compensation of the subject landholding. If this will be rejected, we will study our next option,” said Mejia.
City Administrator Alvin Fernandez said the city government’s position is to assert its right over the 30-hectare property. Failing that Mejia said the mayor is keen on pursuing the recovery of much of the purchased land area or seek a compensation to reduce the city’s financial loss in the land deal.
ACCOUNTABILITY
Mejia said the filing of cases against all those involved in the illegal transaction will be looked into after the city receives a reply to its motion for reconsideration from the DAR.
“Mayor Fernandez wants that we first try to recover the property in its entirety and if this is not possible, to get the just value of the property and if this is not again granted, the filing of a case will be the next big step”, Mejia said,
The city administrator echoed the mayor’s position that if the property has been parceled out to the tenants, leaving nothing for the city, the city government “shall push through with whatever legal recourse it is available to it.”
Fernandez said the city legal officer has already been directed to identify the city officials who should be made accountable in case the city fails to recover the land in full.
The Awai land deal was initiated by former Mayor Benjamin Lim, while the representation for the project in the city council was done by the former city administrator (now provincial administrator) Rafael Baraan. Former Councilor Teofilo Guadiz III was the principal sponsor of the resolution authorizing the city mayor to purchase the land.
Based on DARAB records, the Lim administration did not file the petition for redemption or filed a motion for reconsideration when the resolution for coverage of CARP was filed.
Mejia said that if DAR denies its motion for reconsideration, the Awai land “is as good as gone forever.”
Refund from Cuna
Meanwhile, Councilor Jose Netu Tamayo, who was on his first term of office as councilor when the land was purchased by the city, told newsmen that he and some of his colleagues were not informed that the land intended to be made into a landfill, was tenanted.
He said that then City Administrator Baraan mentioned nothing about tenants when he appeared before the city council,
He said the report that the land was placed under CARP came as a surprise to him and many of his colleagues who remain in the city council.
Tamayo also suggested that if the city can no longer recover the land, the city should run after the seller of the property, Jose Mariano Cuña, who sold the property to the city on April 11, 2002 for P16 million.
Cuña, reportedly a close business associate of Lim, sold the property to the city just less than three months after he bought the same from Estrellita Sangalang of San Jacinto on December 18, 2001 for only P7 million.
“It is just right that our money is returned to us and persons who erred in this transaction ought to be punished to the fullest extent of the law,” said Tamayo, a lawyer.
“Every centavo of that money should be returned by Mr. Cuña, Tamayo added.
He added that if there is a ground for filing a criminal case, aside from the civil case against all those involved, then it should be filed.—LM
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