Aquino, Arroyo allies, poll bets blame each other on Charter veto

BAGUIO CITY – Allies of Pres. Benigno Aquino III and former Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo here blamed each other for the Baguio charter amendment vetoed by President Aquino.

This, as top officials here urged President Aquino to reconsider his veto for the amendment of the Baguio City Charter saying it was needed to address this tourist resort’s problems.

Rep. Bernardo Vergara and Mayor Mauricio Domogan, , sent an appeal letter to the President last week detailing their answers to the veto saying they hoped the Office of the President will be enlightened about the real purpose of the revised city Charter.

Domogan said the city government will not give up to have its revised Charter signed into law since it is the only way to solve its boundary dispute with neighboring town of Tuba, Benguet and disposition of alienable and disposable lands to qualified home lot applicants.

“President Aquino was misled into vetoing the whole Charter of Baguio,” Domogan said, adding that the President’s claim that some provisions of the revised Charter runs counter with national laws is not actually true.

While it is true that the Local Government Code of 1991 provides the procedure on how to settle boundary disputes, Domogan said it is not clear how to concretize the settlement, thus, the agreement reached by the city and Tuba officials on how to settle their dispute so that the city will be able to establish its metes and bounds within its 57.4-square kilometer land area was already enshrined in the Charter that was approved by both the House of Representatives and the Senate.

Reacting to the President’s argument that it is not clear in Section 35 which agency of government will handle the disposition of alienable and disposable lands, the local chief executive said it is still the Department of Environment and Natural Resources that will be in charge with the disposition of alienable and disposable lands in accordance to existing policies.

According to him, the creation of an inter-agency committee to screen the over 5,600 still pending applications for land titles is to ensure that the screening will be hastened considering that DENR-Cordillera regional executive director will also be a member of the created committee, thus, the power to dispose alienable and disposable lands is still lodged with the DENR.

On the statement of the President that the revised Charter is in violation of the provisions of the Public Land Act that requires all fees generated from the sale and disposal of alienable and disposable lands will accrue to the national coffers, Domogan said Section 36 which mandates that proceeds from the sale of the city’s alienable and disposable lands will accrue to the city’s coffers is just a carryover from the provisions of the 1909 city Charter.

The mayor said the revised city Charter does not run counter to the provisions of Republic Act (RA) 7227 or the Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA) law, because BCDA lands in the city, particularly those within the Camp John Hay (CJH), are not classified as alienable and disposable, thus, there is no reason for the said veto.

He did not directly link the veto of the President to political reasons and affiliation but said the veto was the work of his legal advisers who are not fully aware of the real situation in the city and just based their arguments on what was told them by some interest groups who wanted the city Charter to be stalled for selfish and political interests.

Rep. Bernardo M. Vergara, who worked out the passage of the revised city Charter in both chambers of Congress, said the President’s legal advisers should have sought a consultation with the authors of the bill regarding their observations so that they were able to clarify them instead of misleading the President into signing the veto.

Vergara said most of the provisions of the old city Charter were outdated and no longer applicable, thus, the need to pass amendments to make concerns of the city properly addressed.

He said the municipality of Tuba which will benefit from the re-definition of the city’s boundaries will be greatly affected by the veto of the President on the revised city Charter because its municipal building, the municipal police station and part of the public elementary school areas are denominated as prosperities of the city government.

If the Charter was signed into law, Vergara said the equivalent land area occupied by the structures of the municipality of Tuba will be replaced with the property of the municipality in the Dontogan area thereby legitimizing “land swapping.”

A mayoral candidate added his voice to the fray. “If someone is to be blamed, it should be them (Arroyo allies),” said former city councilor Jose MencioMolintas, a UN Expert on Indigenous Peoples Mechanisms and an Aquino ally, adding that the proposal to change the century old city charter lacked genuine consultation and had been watered down when it reached the bicameral committee of Congress.

Molintas who congratulated Aquino for turning down the measure which was described as bereft of depth of a charter because it only listed down schedules of payment for public lands into alienable properties and “not policy directions for the next 100 years for Baguio”, said he, other members of the Liberal Party in the city as well as other non-political sectors are ready to seek the measure's nullification before the Supreme Court.

Aquino returned the measure to Congress without his signature, saying that the objectives of the bill relating to local governmental powers are already covered by the Local Government Code of 1991.

In the veto, the president said the measure "impinges on the Department of Environment and Natural Resources’ exclusive mandate over control and supervision of alienable and disposable public lands and runs counter to the laws governing the disposition of townsite reservations.”

Aquino also said section 35 of the proposed charter is “ambiguous as to the entity that may dispose of alienable and disposable lands which are part of the townsite reservation.”

The president said that when the provision governing the disposition of such lands is unclear as to who initiates the selling, the measure may be interpreted as empowering the local government of Baguio City to dispose of alienable and disposable lands.

Rep. Vergara, who refiled the bill in 2010, said the measure's veto might also be a signal that the autonomy proposal for the Cordillera may also suffer the same fate, saying that "those who misled the President into interpreting certain provisions of the measure will surely oppose it again."

Aquino has kept mum on his opinion about Cordillera autonomy.

Vergara and Mayor Mauricio Domogan, who first filed the bill, said they are willing to file the bill again in the House of Representatives.

LP Baguio chief Marquez Go, who is running against Vergara, meanwhile said they also support the charter amendments, but it should be "genuinely consultative and must represent the sentiment of the people".

Molintas said Baguio, which is experiencing rapid population growth in a limited land area, should develop mass housing for its growing population.

“Stop selling lands,” Molintas said, adding that Baguio's urban decay is caused by the wanton sale of pieces of lots, without the benefit of a strategic development planning. – With a report from Dexter See