The Register of Deeds has denied the adverse claim of SM Prime Holdings Inc. on the 7.7-hectare prime property of the Negros Occidental provincial government in Bacolod City, the sale and lease of which to Ayala Land Inc. has not been acted on yet by the Commission on Audit.

In denying the registration of the Notice of Lis Pendens (adverse claims), filed by SMPHI on March 23 this year, Bonifacio Lamberto Kho said, “The undersigned Registrar of Deeds is not fully convinced of the opinion of the adverse claimant that the latter has a direct claim on the properties of the registered owner, merely based on good reasons of the adverse claimant”.

Kho said the propriety of bidding conducted by the Bidding Committee on Awards and Disposal of the province of Negros Occidental is the main issue of the matter and the Office of the Register of Deeds of Bacolod City has nothing to do with it.

Therefore, the request for annotation of the adverse claim is denied, he added.

The filing of an application for Notice of Lis Pendens by SMPHI was in relation to its case filed against Governor Alfredo Maranon Jr., et al, which is now pending at a Negros Occidental regional trial court.

Vincent Patrick Bayhon, SMPHI counsel, in a letter from the Puno & Puno Law Offices to the Registrar of Deeds-Bacolod City, said the
unjustified refusal to register the notice of lis pendens has deprived SMPHI of its right to give notice to third persons of its interest in the properties.

“There is no other provision in PD 1529 for registering SMPHI’s interest in the properties but through the registration of the Affidavit of Adverse Claim,” Bayhon stressed.

In his Notice of Denial, Kho, however, said SMPHI may elevate the matter En Consulta to the Land Registration Authority, if they are not agreeable to his ruling.

“The case filed by the Judicial Court by party-registrant is one of the Special Civil Action and does not fall within the coverage of the Section 76 of PD 1529,” Kho said in his letter to Bayhon.

With the ROD-Bacolod denial, the SMPHI moved for the elevation of the adverse claim to the Land Registration Authority.

Bayhon said that although they believe that the Notice of Denial was clearly unfounded, they did not elevate the matter to LRA en consulta, as SMPHI, through lawyer Edgar Ryan San Juan,filed an Affidavit of Adverse Claim pursuant to Section 70 of Presidential Decree nO.1529”.

Maryann Manayon-Lamis of the Provincial Legal Office, said citing a Supreme Court ruling, in her letter to ROD-Bacolod, that the bidding process and the exercise of the Committee on Bids and Awards of its functions is purely discretionary, and of such wide latitude, that the discretion to accept or reject a bid or award contracts cannot be compelled by mandamus or injunction.

Maranon had earlier expressed disappointment that the COA did not include the review of the deed of conditional sale of the Capitol land to Ayala in its recent en banc meeting held in Tacloban. A year has passed since they submitted the required documents, he said.

The provincial government stands to earn P3.5 billion from the sale and lease of the provincial government property.* GPB

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