City council pushes appointment of Cordilleran Baguio Deeds head

BAGUIO CITY  – The city council approved a resolution requesting Land Registration Authority (LRA) Administrator Renato D. Bermejo to immediately appoint a permanent Register of Deeds officer in this  preferably coming from the Cordillera.

The resolution authored by all members of the local legislative body said the current slow pace delivery of public service by the Registry of Deeds office in the city due to the absence of a permanent officer has negatively impacted on the overall performance of the local government, especially in attending to the needs of people transacting business with the said office.

Further, the local legislative body also recommended that for the best interest of the city and its constituents, the Registry of Deeds officer to be appointed should come from the Cordillera pursuant to the provisions of Executive Order No. 220 that created the Cordillera Administrative Region and Administrative Order No. 136.

             The resolution noted the absence of a permanent head in a most visited office such as the Registry of Deeds resulted to serious problems of the people having transactions with the said office.

According to the resolution that was unanimously approved, voluminous documents are allegedly not acted upon affecting important transactions of people frequenting the said office on a daily basis.

 Local legislators claimed ROD clients are complaining because of delay in processing of their documents which under normal circumstances would only take several days in the past when there was a permanent ROD officer attending to the daily transactions of the office.

 Earlier, the previous ROD officer was allegedly linked to a controversy that caused the local legislative body to pass a separate resolution requesting for his immediate relief in the city and for him to be transferred to another assignment outside the city because the local government does not need his services.

Complaints against the previous ROD officer in the city ranged from alleged extortion of certain amounts of money from clients in exchange for timely release and processing of their documents from the said office.

The resolution stipulated that after the relief of the previous ROD officer in the city who was allegedly linked to controversies due to complaints from a number of clients, what the LRA could have done was to appoint an officer-in-charge to take charge of the daily transactions in the said office so that there will be no unnecessary delays in the processing of the documents of clients.

              The resolution will be immediately transmitted to the LRA central office for appropriate and favourable action once Mayor Mauricio G. Domogan shall have signed the same and the contents finalized. -- Dexter A. See