BCDA lauds SC ruling on NovaI property

MANILA, Philippines – The modernization program of the Armed Forces of the Philippines will stand to benefit from a Supreme Court ruling canceling ownership of the Navy Officers’ Village Association, Inc. (NOVAI) of a 47-hectare property at Bonifacio Global City in Taguig, state-owned Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA) said.

In a statement, BCDA president and chief executive officer Arnel Paciano Casanova said the government would now be able to pursue development plans to further strengthen BCDA’s contribution for the improvement of the country’s defense capabilities and internal security by recovering the NOVAI land.

“Our national government and our countrymen stand to benefit from favorable rulings such as the NOVAI case, as we will be able to pursue our mandate to convert military lands to more productive use and to help modernize the Armed Forces,” Casanova said.

The NOVAI is a group of retired military officers which earlier claimed ownership of the disputed property situated inside the former Fort Andres Bonifacio Military Reservation (FBMR) in Taguig.

According to the BCDA, the SC decided to uphold an earlier decision made by the Court of Appeals (CA) to cancel ownership of the NOVAI on the Taguig estate.

“The SC decision will ultimately benefit soldiers of the Armed Forces and the Filipino people,” Casanova said.

Casanova said the 475,009 square-meter parcel of land is now estimated to be worth more than P47 billion based on the current selling price of about P100,000 per square meter.

The BCDA is an agency created under R.A. 7227 to own and administer military reservations including those located inside the FBMR. “BCDA remittances help fund the national government’s development projects including the modernization of the AFP to improve the country’s internal security and external defense,” the agency said.

From January 2010 to May 2015, BCDA said it remitted P14.7 billion to the Bureau of Treasury and the Bureau of Internal Revenue.

The AFP’s share from these remittances from January 2010 to May 2015 stood at P6.7 billion, it added.

The BCDA has earlier petitioned that NOVAI is prohibited to acquire the property, claiming that it is an “inalienable land of public domain.”

In the notice of judgment promulgated on Aug. 3 this year by acting Chief Justice Antonio Carpio, Associate Justices Mariano del Castillo, Jose Catral Mendoza, and Marvic Leonen, the SC Second Division resolved “to deny NOVAl’s petition for review on certiorari as we find no reversible error committed by the CA in issuing its Dec. 28, 2006 decision and March 28, 2007 resolution.”