SBN 1931 to pave way for ‘legalized’ land grabbing?

THE Senate last week endorsed for committee hearing Senate Bill 1931, which seeks to hasten the process of land titling in the country but which, others fear, may also result to the massive legalization of fake and spurious land titles and the land grabbing involving public land and the ancestral domains of the country’s indigenous peoples.

In his sponsorship speech last December 9, 2020, Sen. Edgardo ‘Sonny’ Angara, noted that the bill, to be known as the ‘Confirmation of Imperfect Titles Act,’ has become necessary after noting that in the last 10 years, only 5,714 titles were confirmed by the courts.

“The figure reached an all-time low in 2017 where only 140 titles were issued.

“The Supreme Court,” he added, “said it would be up to Congress to set forth a new face of land reform to sensibly regularize and formalize the settlements of such lands.”

“This could be accomplished by liberalizing the standards for judicial confirmation of imperfect title,” Angara said.

Despite this noble intent, Pinoy Exposé noted that land grabbing and the proliferation of questionable, dubious and downright fake land titles continue to proliferate with ordinary Filipinos and the environment at the receiving end.

In General Santos City, the B’laan Tribe there had been repeatedly complaining to the National Press Club and other media groups that their ancestral lands had been the subject of incessant land grabbing activities by powerful local politicians, influential businessmen and those with police and military connections.

When confronted, these land grabbers had even managed to produce ‘land titles’ showing them as “owners” of lands that are actually part of the B’laan’s ancestral domain under the IPRA Law of 1997 (RA 8731).

In the province of Cavite, particularly in Tagaytay City, a couple who were formerly government employees, bewailed to Pinoy Exposé that land grabbing is also allegedly rampant in the area, particulary in Sitio Banauan, Bgy. Iruhin Central.

They claimed that the last June, they were prevented from entering their 1,000 sqm. property that they bought in “good faith” in 2009, after a lawyer suddenly showed up brandishing title to the land the lawyer purportedly bought last year.

The couple said they were not able to visit their property for some time due to the pandemic and when they finally did, their property, where the house they managed to build also stood, was already fenced; they were then forcibly ejected by the private security guards hired by the lawyers with the assistance of the local police.

The couple said they have been trying to have the land titled to them but was prevented from doing so because the entire area is allegedly part of the country’s NIPAS (National Integrated Protected Areas System), under the supervision of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.

If the area is part of NIPAS, they asked, how authentic then is the land title shown to them by the lawyer and which is now being used as justification to file a court case against them with the support of local officials of Tagaytay City.