BINMALEY–Some 100 property owners in Binmaley are set to go to court to protest the impending demolition of their houses and other structures to give way to the ongoing road clearing by the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) and the local government.

Butch Merrera, a retired government official, said he and the rest of the property owners, mostly from Barangay Malindong, will seek redress from the court after they received notices for the scheduled demolition of their own houses and structures that are located in their respective titled property.

He said their houses and structures are not illegal having been issued with building permits by the local government and these were built in their own lands and therefore, both the DPWH and the town government are violating their right to property by seeking to demolish their houses.

“Except for the order of the President for road clearing, the DPWH and the local government cannot present to us solid justification for the demolition of our houses which cost us a lot of money to build and these are also inside our properties,” said Merrera.

He added that the team that served the notice could not show any legal document justifying the demolition of their homes.

“I support the President but his order for road clearing must be executed with caution, in observance of the rule of law and with due respect to private ownership” he told The PUNCH in a telephone interview.

He suspects that the road clearing operations were actually being made for a planned road widening and to avoid expropriation proceedings. Merrera said that those resisting road clearing have long been in possession of the land where their houses structures stand, when the Lingayen-Dagupan road was yet a narrow and still a provincial road.

Observers said that if at all, their properties are needed by the government, an expropriation proceeding must be initiated and the property owners must be given due compensation. 

Merrera slammed the DPWH for being very selective in implementing the road widening as it spared a parking area and a fence of a restaurant owned by a provincial official, the electric posts of Cenpelco that were on the road’s right of way and the house of a retired judge also close to the road.

No one at the municipal hall was willing to issue a statement or explanation on the case at presstime. (Leonardo Micua) 

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