RECENTLY, the Quezon City Regional Trial Court rendered a decision against the owner of Mang Larry’s Isawan located in the campus of the University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City. The known local entrepreneur filed a case against UP over a claim of ownership of land within the UP campus which the former allegedly bought from a previous owner in 2019. The court ruled against him because it found that the previous seller had fictitious claim over the UP property. It appeared that Mang Larry was defrauded by the seller who sold the former a land he did not own. Clearly, Mang Larry and UP were both victims of fraud.
Unfortunately, Mang Larry decided to run after UP while the fraudster and perpetrator of the crime remained unidentified and laughed his way to the bank with Mang Larry’s hard-earned money. Regrettably, the UP administration is being vilified publicly as an oppressor of a small but relatively successful Filipino entrepreneur whose brand and business had been a fixture and now a part of UP heritage and culture.
In an ideal situation, Mang Larry’s would have been grateful to UP for being the host of his nascent and fledgling small enterprise while UP would have been so proud of Mang Larry’s success for having nurtured a successful Filipino entrepreneur who could be the future Tony Tan Cak Tiong of Jollibee if only these legal woes did not happen. Mang Larry’s Isawan could have even been a case study at the UP College of Business Administration on how to build and scale up a business.
But we are not in an ideal situation. As the unfortunate fate would have it, Mang Larry succumbed to the guile of a fraudster. Because of this he was emboldened to file a case against UP. Hence, UP was compelled by its legal obligation to evict him from the campus. Had reasonable minds prevailed, Mang Larry would have simply continued to lease a lot at the UP campus, continue to grow his business as it branches out to other places across the country, and “isaw” aficionados, students and professionals alike, would not see his famous grill stand leave our beloved campus.
Mang Larry’s case is not an isolated one. In fact, organized landgrabbing syndicates are having grand bonanzas by the billions of pesos in defrauding unsuspecting Filipinos by selling to the latter, inalienable and alienable lands owned by the government. Among the most notorious of these groups are the Tallano group, the Hermogenes Rodriguez group and Acopiado syndicates. Aided by armed thugs, some of whom were AWOL soldiers and police, enterprising lawyers, corrupt politicians, fake civil society leaders posing themselves as urban poor organizers, these groups forcibly occupy government lands, mostly unguarded and idle, and lay claim over these prime lands. They have deep connections within the government agencies and bureaucracy, such as the DENR, the LRA and the Registries of Deeds across the country.
For many idle lands within the military reservations, forest lands and foreshore lands, some of the perpetrators are former and active senior military officials and influential politicians. Thousands of hectares and trillions of pesos of land assets owned by the government are lost in these unabated and unchecked criminal activities. Along the inalienable foreshore lands of Laguna Lake, particularly in Taguig City, illegal reclamations are being done day and night without any government agency nor official raising a warning that such illegal reclamations reduce radically the flood waters carrying capacity of Laguna Lake which would lead to the worst floods that Metro Manila experienced. The smaller and shallower the Laguna Lake becomes, the less and less flood waters that the lake can absorb and detain. This is a national disaster waiting to happen caused by the greed of very few that can kill hundreds if not thousands in the event of a Category 5 supertyphoon in Metro Manila. Such tragedy can be aggravated by the loss of forest cover in the uplands of Sierra Madre, as landgrabbing syndicates occupy and sell the forest lands and national park in this mountain range, so vital and critical to the safety and survival of millions of people in Metro Manila and the surrounding provinces. Massive quarrying destroys critical parts of Sierra Madre yet officials remain dumb and deaf about their operations.
There is hope though. Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Lotilla is an honorable public servant with the welfare of our people in heart and mind. However, he needs the support of all Filipinos, particularly those in the law enforcement and regulations to confront these powerful landgrabbing syndicates and put a stop to their operations by dismantling their power network and structure through exposing them to the public and prosecuting them without hesitation and with the full force of the law. Like him, the current solicitor general, Darlene Berberabe, a feisty Batangueña with brilliant legal mind, can prosecute these cases with expediency. There are good men and women in these agencies who can turn things around. The Armed Forces can protect thousands of hectares of military reservations and utilize them to generate resources to modernize their equipment and capability instead of having their own officers end up landgrabbers and professional squatters.
We have vast lands and natural resources. Our national patrimony can feed and make every Filipino rich and progressive. We must demand from our leaders who are stewards of these assets to protect, defend and recover them from land grabbing syndicates. Better yet, put all these landgrabbers in jail, for good.
Otherwise, we will all be grilled on our lard, as what happened to Mang Larry’s Isawan.
