Soldiers evicting soldiers

The media coverage of Philippine Marines bodily ejecting elderly retired Naval officers from their quarters at Fort Bonifacio was difficult to watch, even if those retired officers were "overstaying" in those quarters.

It was the sort of situation which never should have happened. But it was inevitable, given the state of affairs of the occupation of extremely valuable properties at the Fort Bonifacio military reservation.

Two huge pieces of property, one comprising 40 hectares (the former JUSMAG area behind the Forbes Park Village in Makati City) and another parcel of 47 hectares (the Bonifacio Naval Station area alongside Dasmarinas Village also in Makati), are claimed by two "village associations," organized by the wives of military officers, to be the personal properties of those officers.

The associations are the Navy Officers Village Association, Inc. (NOVAI) and the Southside Homeowners Association, Inc. (SHAI) The latter was organized by the wives of Army officers. At the moment, SHAI is not involved in the evictions. It all depends on whether the Army service commander will follow the example of Navy Flag Officer in Command Vice Admiral Mateo Mayuga who has decided to bite the bullet.

This was the reason many of the evictees were crying foul as their worldly possessions, and in some painful cases they themselves, were being physically removed from the premises they were occupying. They claimed the homes were their personal properties, to which they held valid Torrens Titles.

Technically, they were correct. Although the government has been trying to recover the properties titled to NOVAI members, it has so far failed to do so. The Pasig regional trial court ruled against the government. The case is now pending with the Court of Appeals. Hence, the assailed titles remain in the occupants’ names.

News reports put the number of overstaying retirees at 56. According to the Navy, all 56 have either voluntarily left or have been evicted as of the weekend. Another 17 were somehow able to obtain temporary restraining orders to halt their eviction. The Navy says it is honoring those TROs but is going forward with those who, for one reason or another, were unable to get such court orders.

About 113 Naval officers, active and retired as of January 9, 1992, were issued titles through NOVAI. Since only about 56 were, according to the Navy brass, "overstaying," and 17 have TROs, there must be 40 or so still in the active service. By this time, many of them must be about to retire. Upon retirement, they will either go peacefully or be bodily carried out like some of their more stubborn colleagues. It doesn’t look like we’ve seen the last of those ugly confrontations at the Naval quarters area.

The Navy FOIC, Vice Admiral Mayuga, should be praised for, at the very least, bringing the issue to a head. In doing so, he risks a contempt citation from the appellate court where the NOVAI case is pending. But he has correctly pinpointed the issues in this case, citing morale among the naval officer corps, as well as the welfare of senior officers, both men and women, still in the active service.

In a sense, these issues outweigh the legal arguments. But let’s add some perspective to the matter. It’s bad enough that active officers are forced to seek housing outside the military camp where they serve. One would have to be pretty dense not to see the deep harm and profound prejudice caused to the military by some privileged officers who claim such abundant divine bounty as private titles in a booming area.

This is particularly true when, as the Feliciano Fact Finding Commission concluded in July 2003, "the misappropriation of Fort Bonifacio land with which the Government has, in the SHAI and NOVAI cases, charged senior military officers, is so epic in scale as to make [other alleged anomalies in the military] seem like petty shoplifting in comparison." (Itals. ours)

The epic scale of the misappropriation, if the government’s charges are proved, is self-evident. For one thing, the land was transferred to NOVAI in 1991 at roughly P30 pesos per square meter, or a reported total of about P14,250,270 for the 47 hectares or 470,000 square meters. Compare this with the P30,000 per square meter the Bases Conversion Development Authority (BCDA) said in 2003 it would be able to sell the properties if they were recovered by the government. The BCDA computed the proceeds from the NOVAI area at P14.1 billion.

But in November 2004, Defense Secretary Avelino "Nonong" Cruz said the price had gone up to P40,000 per square meter. That meant the current value of the disputed property was about P19 billion then. That was a year and a half ago. Development of the Fort Bonifacio area has since progressed by leaps and bounds. Real estate brokers now estimate the value of the land in that area to be significantly higher than the value projected by Nonong Cruz at the time.

You do the math. It seems to me that if the area were sold to private developers, the Armed Forces would have the funds and land to solve the housing problem of active officers once and for all, and maybe even have enough left over to address the problems of retired officers. And that’s only NOVAI. What about SHAI? That, however, is a somewhat different can of worms.

Since the NOVAI case has been appealed to the Court of Appeals, that court now has to consider the alleged errors of the Pasig regional trial court in its decision. These include whether the property assigned to NOVAI was actually covered by a Presidential Proclamation allowing its sale to qualified naval officers; whether that supposed Proclamation issued by President Corazon Aquino was in fact a fake, as testified to by then Executive Secretary Franklin Drilon; whether the signature of the then Land Management Bureau director on the certificate of title was forged; and whether the purchasers actually paid any consideration for the land supposedly purchased.

On all these issues, among others, the Pasig RTC ruled against the government. That decision is indeed curious in many respects but since it remains sub judice, that’s all we’ll say about it at this time.

On one level of analysis, the eviction case at the Fort Bonifacio naval quarters is not as simple as it sounds. Or perhaps the case is really as simple as figuring out that some people do have the gall to carry on scams "on an epic scale." Besides, maybe some people do have that heightened degree of cupidity to tell one’s "less smart" colleagues, including those to be promoted in the future, to, in effect, go to hell.