LRA launches P4-billion computerized land titling system

The Land Registration Authority (LRA) launched this week a P4-billion project to install a computerized land titling system in the country with the awarding of the contract to a six-company consortium headed by a Filipino-Korean business tie-up.

The winning bid was won by the Mega Data Consortium, a business venture composed of the Mega Group of Computer Companies; LG-EGS Systems, a firm which set up the world's first nationwide computerized land titling system in South Korea; Amalgamated Motors Phils., CM Pancho Construction; GEZ-Hongkong and the Marconi Integrated Systems.

"With this, fake land titles and corruption in land registration transactions will be history," LRA Administrator Alfredo Enriquez said.

He said the Philippines is only the second country in the world, after South Korea, to institute a computer network-based land titling system nationwide.

The consortium bested the bids of three other groups, namely the AMA Consortium (AMA); Stradec Unisys FF Cruz and Confac Consortium (SUFC) and the Photokina Marketing Corp. Consortium (PMC).

The project, to be solely financed by the winning bidder under a mixed build-operate-own (BOO) and build-operate transfer (BOT) scheme, will run in two phases.

In the first phase, Mega Data Consortium will complete a database for an estimated 25 million titles now in LRA records -- including those dating back to the Spanish era -- in three years' time, using state-of-the-art computer scanners to make digital images of the original titles.

The LRA, which supervises all registers of deeds in the country, is attached to the Department of Justice headed by Secretary Serafin Cuevas.

Consortium officials led by Rafael Garcia III, who is also president of the Mega Group of Computer Companies, said that within a year Mega Data will be able to fully computerize the operations of 50 registers of deeds in the country, including those in the cities of Quezon, Las Piñas and Cebu -- which have the biggest collection of titles.

"That is why we are urging the public to check the authenticity of their titles as soon as the system becomes operational in their areas," Enriquez said.

The second phase of the project, which extends to another 10 years, will cover the training of 5,000 new personnel, equipment upgrade and maintenance and the setting up of 50 new registers of deeds.

Under the contract, which requires an initial investment of some P2.5 billion, a three-story building will be built beside the LRA main office in Quezon City to house the system's mainframe computers and central operations center.

American colonizers introduced the Torrens titling system to the country in 1902. Under this uniform system of titling, which was developed by Sir Robert Richard Torrens, an Englishman, the title itself became "the guarantee of ownership against the whole world" unlike the Spanish Mortgage Law registration which had a cumbersome and separate process of registration of title and evidence to such title.

It was only in 1976, however, when the Spanish system was totally abolished by then President Ferdinand Marcos. In 1978, Marcos issued another decree which codified the registration of lands under the Torrens system and those of unregistered lands, including chattel mortgages.

For a long time, authorities thought the Torrens system was fool-proof, until cases of original copies of Torrens titles -- which are supposed to be indefeasible once issued -- being faked began to surface.

"It would be easy to see, using digital technology, if a title is tampered or is a fake," said Garcia, consortium president. "At the stroke of a key, we can compare the title in question with the digital image of the original in our database."

He said the "open client-server system" to be used by the consortium will fully decentralize the operations of the country's over 250 registers of deeds under a Unix-based information network that will allow access to LRA records from any computer unit of the authority.

"A computer glitch in say, a regional office in Mindanao, will not affect the rest of the offices," he said.

The 2,000-unit computer network features hardware supplied by Sun Microsystems, the world's biggest provider of Unix technologies.

Garcia said Mega Data will also provide digital maps of the country's land resources using satellite photo-gammetry. The technology allows high-speed checks of overlapping land claims.

Garcia's company is no stranger to projects such as this. The Mega Group of Computer Companies has been involved in the computerization of the National Bureau of Investigation's criminal history data files and clearance system since 1977.

The company was also contracted to build a computer database for the Land Transportation Office's license records system.

Garcia said the consortium is also bidding for the computerization of the passport records system of the Department of Foreign Affairs. -