Mayor warns of suit vs BCDA for ‘breach of conditionalities’

By Aileen P. Refuerzo

BAGUIO CITY – Mayor Mauricio Domogan on Monday warned that the city is running out with options in getting the Bases Conversion Development Authority (BCDA) to comply with the 19 conditionalities for the development of Camp John Hay that it may now have to resort to legal remedies.

            The mayor directed the city legal office to study the filing of a case for specific performance against the BCDA for breach of the conditionalities set under Resolution Numbered 362, series of 1994.

The mayor said “recent developments showed BCDA’s wishy-washy attitude towards the fulfillment of the conditionalities particularly when the BCDA and the John Hay Management Corporation (JHMC), BCDA’s implementing arm in the John Hay Special Economic Zone (JHSEZ) and John Hay Reservation Area (JHRA) signed a usufruct agreement with the Department of Education (DepEd) for the latter’s use of a 1,529 square meter lot to put up a school building at Barangay Country Club within Camp John Hay.”

The mayor said the usufruct agreement is in violation of 14th condition for the segregation of the 13 barangays from the reservation.

The city council earlier said there is no need for any contract of usufruct to be executed with BCDA if only BCDA will immediately cause the segregation of the barangays as per the conditionalities.

The mayor said DepEd Secretary Armin Luistro who signed the agreement may not be aware of the city’s conditionalities.  “We have to write Secretary Luistro and clarify this with him,” the mayor said.

“With what is happening and with BCDA’s seeming flip-flopping attitude, we have no choice to file a case on specific performance.

The mayor directed city treasurer Alicia Onoza to validate the computation of the city’s shares from the rentals of concessionaires within the special economic zone following information that BCDA extended its lease of area to the Ayala company for 75 years which if true, is another violation of the conditionalities, he said.

“It is time to demand from the BCDA our share from these rentals including the Ayala business which is part of the 247 hectares leased by the BCDA.  Our share from the Camp John Hay Development Corporation (CJHDevCo) is now the subject of arbitration so we just have to wait for the outcome of the arbitration but our share for those collected now should also be remitted.  I hope BCDA will not shortchange us,” the mayor said. 

            The mayor said the city may also reconsider BCDA’s offer to give to the city government manor houses and golf shares to settle part of its arrears to the city for its share from the lease rentals.

            He tasked the treasurer to review the offer tendered some years back.

            The city government has over the years appealed to the BCDA to honor the 19 conditionalities to no avail.

Last year, the mayor made the same threat to file a case against the BCDA with the mayor expressing disappointment over the bodies’ disregard of the conditions particularly when BCDA challenged the city’s authority to impose business and building and occupancy permit requirements on new constructions within the John hay Special Economic Zone.

            Another concern cited by the mayor was the BCDA’s interference in barangay issues including those involving ancestral land claims and even the construction of school buildings like what happened in Hillside barangay.

     

       The mayor and the city council also questioned the BCDA’s plan to exclude the open or unoccupied spaces in the barangays from the segregation process.

            “Condition number 14… states that ‘The BCDA shall exclude all affected barangays from the John Hay reservation… What is supposed to be segregated are ‘all affected barangays,’ not individual residences.  Hence the survey should be of barangays, not the land where structures have been built on,” the city council stressed in Resolution No. 152 series of 2013.

            The barangays eyed for segregation from the John Hay reservation are Camp 7, Country Club Village, Greenwater, Happy Hallow, Hillside, Loakan-Apugan, Loakan-Liwanag, Loakan Proper, Lower Dagsian, Lucnab, Military Cut-Off, Sta. Escolastica Village and Upper Dagsian.