Court to order arrest of alleged landgrabber

MANILA, Philippines - A Quezon City court is set to issue a warrant for the arrest of suspected landgrabber Wilfredo Torres, who was recently convicted of three counts of estafa.

A staff at the Regional Trial Court Branch 100 said the arrest warrant will be issued since Torres failed to appear last week during the promulgation of the decision on the fraud charges filed against him.

Judge Marie Christine Jacob said she found Torres guilty beyond reasonable doubt on the separate estafa cases filed by Carmen Panganiban, Constancia Endaya, and Remedios Endaya-Rothenbacker, who said Torres sold them several parcels of land in the 1990s, but did not give them the land titles after they paid him.

Last year, Torres hit the headlines when he tried to take possession of a 24-hectare prime land in Quezon City following the issuance of a writ of possession by a local court. The implementation of the order has since been suspended by the Court of Appeals.

In the case filed by Panganiban, Jacob sentenced Torres, Nimfa de Leon and Evelyn Dequilla to a maximum prison term of 10 years and ordered them to pay her P46,000 in damages.

As for Endaya’s case, the court convicted Torres, Leopoldo Zafe, Virginia Zafe, and Genoveva Foster. Torres, the two Zafes, De Leon, and Jesus Sinambal were convicted in the case filed by Endaya-Rothenbacker.

The Court ordered them to pay Endaya and Endaya-Rothenbacker P423,000 and P298,000, respectively. They were also sentenced to a maximum of 20 years in prison for each of the two cases.