‘Pnoy misled by advisers on Baguio City charter’

By Dexter A. See 

BAGUIO CITY – The advisers of President Benigno Simeon C. Aquino III misled him in vetoing the revised Charter of Baguio City which was passed upon by both chambers of Congress that now deprives qualified homelot applicants to permanently own alienable and disposable lands they currently occupy, Sen. Francis Joseph Escudero said here recently.

           

We were surprised to learn why only the revised charter of Baguio was vetoed by the President when we were able to pass similar charter amendments of some cities in the country which contain the same provision on direct award of alienable and disposable lands to qualified homelot applicants,” Escudero said, adding some allies of the President are giving him the wrong advises to suit their own political and personal interests.

Once the revised charter of Baguio will again be refilled in the House and Senate during the upcoming 16^th Congress, Escudero assured city officials and residents that he will support its eventual passage and bring to the attention the plight of the greater majority of Baguio residents to have their titles to the lands that they currently occupy, particularly the alienable and disposable lands that were defined under the charter.

 According to him, the action of the President’s allies to mislead him in vetoing the revised Baguio charter is totally against the Aquino administration’s pro-poor policy since thousands of local residents are already deprived of owning the lands that they currently occupied that were classified as alienable and disposable through direct award.

 Subjecting the city’s alienable and disposable lands to public bidding, Escudero explained, allows influential and rich people to own prime lots in the different parts of the city thereby displacing even qualified homelot applicants, thus, the beauty of direct award of the lands to those qualified occupants.

Based on data obtained from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources in the Cordillera, there are more than 5,600 applications for townsite sales that have not yet been processed because the DENR Secretary never convened the clearing committee that he chairs to start processing the awards to the qualified beneficiaries through public bidding.

 Escudero said the direct award of alienable and disposable lands to qualified beneficiaries will also help the local government generate more funds that could be utilized to fund the implementation of more high impact and priority development projects and enhance the delivery of basic services to the people of the city, thus, such veto of the revised city charter is a means to deprive the city government the chance to raise its revenues from real properties and utilize the same for more locally initiated projects.

 The reelectionist senator claimed the approval of revisions to local charters should not be highly politicized by the allies of the President because the greater majority of the people are the ones being deprived of chances to own legitimate properties, enjoy better projects and have access to the basic services offered for their welfare, thus, those who engineered the veto of the President are the ones who are anti-poor because they do not want their fellow Baguio residents to permanently own the lands that they currently occupy.

He told city officials and residents not to lose hope on the veto of the revised city charter as he will try to call the attention of the President on the matter and for him not to rely on his allies with selfish motives.