Declaratory relief, TRO sought

Lawyer Jose Ma. Valencia of the provincial government yesterday said the province is finalizing a suit for declaratory relief with a petition for a Temporary Restraining Order and writ of preliminary injunction against the register of deeds on the 500 hectare Negros First Ranch in Murcia.

This move was taken by Valencia on the instance of Governor Alfredo Marañon Jr. even as the various sectors of the sugar industry brace themselves to testify on House Bill 6113 author Rep. Alfredo Benitez (3rd District, Neg. Occ.) at the hearing of the House committee headed by Rep. Mark Llandro Mendoza (Batanes, 4th district).

The suit involves the 500,000-square meter property in Murcia sold to the province by George Arguelles on March 30, 2012.

The ranch was intended as site for the cattle and sheep breeding. The animals had been bought from Australia by the provincial government and are intended to boost the province’s livestock program and provide opportunities for better livelihood for thousands of Negrense farmers.

The province requested for its exemption from the coverage of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program in the interest of public service.

Last March 5, however, the department of Agrarian Reform of the province issued a notice of coverage to George Arguelles.

On April 20, Valencia informed Enrique Paredes that the 50 hectares property had been in possession of the province and utilized as part of its Negros First Ranch based on the Memorandum of Agreement entered into by Arguelles and the province.

In short, the property is now owned by the provincial government of Negros Occidental as shown by the deed of absolute sale.

It turned out later that in 2011 the DAR and the Land Registration Authority jointly issued Memo Circular No. 17, Series of 2011, which provides for the annotation of adverse claims for agricultural land distributed by DAR.

The circular specifically directs the LRA through its respective offices of the ROD to officially annotate as an adverse claim, the fact of coverage of the original copies of the Certificates of Title.

Valencia pointed out that the memo circular espouses an entirely different concept of the “adverse claim” as enshrined in Section 10 of the Presidential Decree 1529, the Property Registration Decree, which clearly outlines the procedure of annotating and adverse claim.

In short, as pointed out by Valencia, the adverse claim in the memorandum circulate does not open to be the same as the adverse claim in PD 529, the element of real interest on the part of DAR and the LRA over the titles is lacking, since they are only of speculative and prospective interests. “Not sufficient to provide for such annotation of an adverse claim over agricultural properties.”

It does not follow the clear requirements in Memo Circular No. 17. Also the question of lifespan of the adverse claim – is it perpetual based on the provisions of the said circular?

Also other questions were raised such as, can an adverse claim be made by the government office like DAR since PD 529 states that only natural or judicial person may make adverse claim?

Another is how can one annotate an adverse claim on the whole title when not the entire property within the title is capable. And how does the annotation of the adverse claim effect the retention of rights of the landowner?

There were a lot of other issues raised by Valencia in the government’s suit against the Register of Deeds. I shall write about them in more detail later.

But the more important points raised by Valencia was that the notice of coverage was already issued by the DAR and should the annotation by the ROD be made, it definitely will restrict and isolate the rights of the province to pursue its priority projects to deliver basic services to its constituents.

The province will definitely suffer irreparable injury during the pendency of the case if the ROD is enjoined from annotating the said adverse claim.

The petitioner has not immediate and adequate remedy available to the ordinary course of law except for the court issue a temporary restraining order and writ of preliminary injunction.

To prevent the ROD from committing further acts violative of the rights of the province, Valencia also said it is imperative that the preliminary injunction be issued are mandatory.

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Incidentally, COURAGE should ask GSIS chairman Bitay Lacson to explain in detail the decision of the board to invest part of its P500-billion pension fund in the supposed government infrastructure program. Actually, as explained by Lacson to me yesterday, the GSIS board is only assuring it does not compromise its actual liabilities, pointing out that it now is inhibited by law from extending loans to members with a monthly income of less than P5,000.

Besides, he pointed out that the amount (which represents only a small of the total investible funds of the GSIS) is with an international consortium which has invested its own $150-million plus others from the ADB and the Dutch government.

In short, it is actually an investment that, hopefully, would operate bigger income to the GSIS funds and not deplete it.

In plain language, ganar en vez perder. But I would prefer COURAGE officials to interview Lacson for further elucidation so they could disabuse their minds of what they are trying to alarm their members of.*

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