Issuance of illegal land titles over watersheds : Mt Province dads push probe of DENR officials

BY ANGEL BAYBAY

BONTOC, Mountain Province – Provincial and Tadian town officials here are seeking the investigation of Dept. of Environment and Natural Resources personnel involved in the illegal issuance of individual land titles and approval of surveys on watershed areas of the province.

Governor Maximo Dalog bared this a week after he endorsed the stand of the Provincial Peace and Order Council to request a congressional investigation on the issue.

He said he will personally request DENR secretary Lito Atienza to initiate the investigation, adding provincial and Tadian officials are willing to go to Manila to have an audience with the secretary. Dalog has called on the help of provincial DENR chief Peter Osbucan and Cordillera regional director Samuel Peñafiel to schedule the meeting.

In a telephone conversation with Peñafiel, the Panafiel told Dalog he had instructed his staff to look into the problem particularly basis of issuance of titles considering that 82 percent (166 hectares out of 201 hectares}of the surveyed lots are outside the alienable and disposable area.

“Our office is also making some sort of investigation and we will cause the Solicitor General to file a class suit should we find it illegal. This is all what we could do for now because unless the titles issued are revoked, the recipients remain to be the owners of the land,” Peñafiel said.

The alleged illegal titling of lots near the Mount Data watershed came to fore when residents of Barangay Dacudac in Tadian, on August 5, 2004, conducted a tree planting activity on an area they claimed as part of the community’s watershed only to be sued for illegal entry and damage to property by a certain Delson Palid.

In one of the court hearings, Palid produced a title to prove ownership over the land and dispute the claim of Dacudac residents that the area is a communal property.
About a year after the incident, provincial government employees assigned to guard the Mount Data Hotel were also charged for theft by some gardeners when they captured some rolls of plastic water hose tapped in one of the creeks which supplies water to nearby communities.

To remedy the problem, the provincial government offered to build a water reservoir to supply gardeners and community people but was refused by the vegetable farmers. This remedial measure was suggested by the provincial health office here to avoid water pollution which could be partly caused by people who frequent the area to tap and fix their water hoses.

An earlier examination by a Baguio-based laboratory on a water sample from the area proved the water was contaminated with chemicals hence unsafe for human consumption.

The uncooperative stance of some parties to possible solutions that benefit gardeners and nearby communities prompted Tadian officials to ask the help of the Provincial Peace and Order Council which consequently came out with a resolution requesting secretary Atienza to revoke the land titles and the survey of lots outside the alienable and disposable section.

In a related development, the copy of the completed survey and the list of land claimants furnished to the office of the governor seemed to have opened more problems to the already brewing issue. Provincial attorney Einstein Calaoa reported to the governor that some of the titled lots are timberlands and mossy forests with only small patches being utilized as vegetable farms.

The governor likewise observed that the municipality of Mankayan, Benguet already laid claim on at least 69 lots with a total area of more or less 532,128 square meters as manifested on the list despite the fact that the question of whether the area is part of Tadian or Mankayan is yet to be settled.

“This is indeed unfair and unfortunate. Pending the resolution of the boundary issue, what we should do is to cooperatively preserve and maintain the trees and forest covers of the problem area,” Dalog said.