Mayor Al to Cuna: “Return P16 M!”
AWAI LAND DEAL FIASCO
MAYOR Alipio Fernandez Jr. has given up on taking possession of the 30-hectare property bought by the past city administration in Barangay Awai, San Jacinto, supposedly to be used as a sanitary landfill site.
Instead, the mayor said the city government will pursue the return of the P16 million it paid to a certain Jose Mariano Cuna for the property since the title was never transferred to the city government.
“He should just return our money,” said Fernandez during the KBP forum on Thursday.
The land in question has been declared as covered of the government’s Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) seven years ago.
The land was bought by the administration of then Mayor Benjamin Lim from Cuna, who according to records bought the land from one Estrella Sangalang of San Jacinto, one of the heirs of the large Fernandez Estate in that town.
During the time of the sale, the land was already under litigation before the Department of Agrarian Reform Arbitration Board (DARAB) in a case filed by tenants against both Sangalang and Cuna, but the city government still pursued the purchase reportedly on an assurance that the case would be withdrawn.
When Fernandez assumed office in 2007, the city government had already lost its claim but it filed an appeal before the DAR for reconsideration. The city lost its appeal and the mayor conceded that efforts to reclaim the land are practically a lost cause.
Fernandez admitted his administration was not optimistic when it filed the appeal but it did so as not to be accused of having failed to act on “something that was purchased for that purpose”.
Without the AWAI land, Fernandez said Dagupan is in no position to continue the plan of the past city administration to build a sanitary landfill there.
Dagupan has applied to become one of the users of the sanitary landfill being built by the Urdaneta City government.—LM
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