Computerization of land titling on track - LRA

MANILA, Philippines - The computerization of land titling in the Philippines is now 52 percent done and is expected to minimize land disputes and reduce litigation of such cases, an official of the Land Registration Authority said.

LRA deputy administrator Ronald Ortile said the agency has had difficulty in curbing the activities of syndicates faking land titles, claiming that they are in cahoots with corrupt Registers of Deeds.

“Under the program, all our regional offices will be connected to the central office through a dedicated line, so it will not be vulnerable to hacking. That will allow anyone to cross-check documents, like original titles with the owner’s duplicate,” he said.

Ortile cited that the Manotok Compound controversy arose because the records of the Quezon City Register of Deeds were destroyed when a fire gutted a part of the city hall in 1988, forcing the agency to reconstitute titles. The family of the late Severino Manotok IV managed to have their title to the 34-hectare Manotok Compound reconstituted by the LRA, but two other parties claimed that they were the owners of the land.

“But we are now converting our documents into electronic data which will be equipped with security features so we can easily detect if a document is genuine or spurious,” Ortile said.

According to Ortile, there had been some internal resistance to computerization. He cited that in Marikina City, housing loan applicants complained that it took months for personnel of the Register of Deeds to release certified copies of titles when it only used to take a few days under the manual system.

An LRA official also initially rejected the application for reconstitution of one of the claimants in the Manotok Compound case as the land was already registered to the Manotok family. But this was overruled for unknown reasons based on legal points that were later shown to be erroneous or misapplied by no less than Justice Antonio Carpio, when he heard the case as an associate justice in 2005. This is still pending in the Supreme Court.

“The Land Registration Authority will, sooner than we think, have a revamp that will rock the Registrars of Deed’s off their seats,” Ortile said, noting that 87 of the 168 Registries of Deeds are now fully automated and the agency expects to complete the program by November 2011.

“The 5-phase program began in 2007. We are already in the 3rd phase. It is being implemented through a build-operate-own scheme so it is being undertaken at no cost to the government,” he said.

Delfin Hallare Jr., president of the Land Registration System Inc. that is implementing the computerization, said the project may even be completed ahead of schedule, sometime in the middle of next year. He said the project, worth P2.7 billion, “is still in transition period and its benefits may only be fully realized when it is completed.”