Scions of school donors want lands back; execs press immediate titling

By Dexter A. See

LA TRINIDAD, Benguet — The provincial government here is now trying to prevent hundreds of school sites from shrinking in size following effort by land claimants to get back what has been donated by their ancestors the past decades.

Gov. Nestor B. Fongwan said lands occupied by hundreds of public schools in the province are getting smaller year after year, expressing alarm that only about 10 percent of the hundreds of school sites in this vegetable-producing province have titles.

Fongwan said there was need to immediately process proclamations or titles over school sites to stop further encroachments being done by unscrupulous individuals, mostly relatives of those who donated the lands to the schools in the province.

The current problem on the shrinking of the sizes of schools around the province was caused by land claimants who want to get back part of the school sites donated by their parents or ancestors.

Based on data obtained from the Benguet Division of Schools, around 319 school sites have been identified for presidential proclamation or special patent which must be undertaken by the concerned national government agencies.

Delays in the processing of school sites were traced to their falling under patented areas or road-right-of-ways as well as due to the adverse claims posed by the occupants of the said properties.

Three years ago, the Department of Education and Department of Environment and Natural Resources signed a memorandum of agreement that sought to provide for the issuance of presidential proclamations to some 3,000 school sites nationwide that do not have appropriate titles.

This is in addition to the additional 2,000 school sites that still lacked relocation and segregation surveys.