Aguirre, 13 others face graft raps

Former Executive Secretary, now National Security Adviser, Alexander Aguirre and 13 others, including four public works and highways officials, are facing falsification of public documents and graft charges in the Quezon City Prosecutor's Office in connection with the sale of a 4,862-square meter property in Novaliches.

The charges were filed by residents of the disputed property in Artys H. Tibagan, Barangay Talipapa, Novaliches.

The families, represented by Noel Mabilog, Ma. Teresa Elano, Carlito Edra, Felipe Montero and Loreta Ilano, claimed they were deprived of land on which they had been living for a long time when Aguirre, as Executive Secretary of the Ramos administration, conspired with DPWH officials to sell the property to a moneyed family in Navotas without informing them and obtaining their consent.

According to the families, Presidential Decree 1517 or the law on urban land reform issued by then President Marcos, mandated that before any such sale can be made, residents of the property should first be informed about it.

"Even before the government took over, we had been occupying the property," they said in their complaint filed last Friday.

Named as other respondents in the complaint were DPWH-National Capital Region officials Pablo Bautista Sr., Juanito Abergas; Milagros Nicolasora and Gregorio Cunanan.

They also accused a lawyer, Arturo Zialcita, of notarizing the falsified Deed of Repurchase signed by Aguirre to dispose of the property to the buyers represented by Restituto Tiangco, Victoria Tiangco Ong Oh, Librada Tiangco Cruz, Rufino Borromeo Tiangco, Remedios Tiangco and Patricia Borromeo Tiangco.

According to the complainants, the DPWH officials received the deed signed by Aguirre on April 23, 1998. But they said the sale was patently anomalous because the deed did not even indicate when the agreement to sell was reached, adding that it was only notarized a year after the land was supposed to have been sold. But the deed itself, they said, indicated the notary public himself witnessed the two parties make the sale.

They also claimed that:

* while the deed of repurchase said the property was covered by transfer certificate of title no. 3281000 in the name of the Republic of the Philippines, the title issued by the Register of Deeds in Quezon City said the title to the property was unnumbered;

* government records do not indicate a deed of repurchase was made but actually a deed of sale and it was not to the Tiangco family but to two persons identified as Renato Lee and Joseph.

"It is clear that the sale was made using falsified documents," they said in their complaint. --