The Cabatangan Property: Zamboanga City’s Holy Grail (Last of 4 parts)

IT NOW begs these logical and rational questions: what will the ARMM, and now the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, do with the Cabatangan Regional Government Center and the offices that sit on it when Zamboanga City is not part of its geopolitical jurisdiction? And assuming it wants to sell the property to the City of Zamboanga, HOW COULD IT TRANSFER OWNERSHIP OF THE PROPERTY BY WAY OF A SALE WHEN IT DOES NOT HAVE IN ITS POSSESSION THE LEGAL TITLE OR THE DEEDS TO THE LOTS? Hence, since under the circumstance selling the property is obviously not a doable option, and if the current ARMM, or the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, is sincere in their desire to achieve true and lasting peace and unity, all they could do is to simply DONATE the Cabatangan Regional Government Center to the City of Zamboanga. By this act, the magnanimity of the Moro people will go down in the annals of history, with epic proportions, as the penultimate and heartfelt gesture of the Bangsamoro for a peaceful co-existence and oneness towards its Christian brothers and sisters in Zamboanga City. More than a symbol, it could serve as the finishing touch that will finally resolve the decades-old protracted, contentious and incendiary issues. It’s about time this urgent concern should be laid to its final rest.

My final thoughts. As far as our La Bella Zamboanga is concerned, taking possession and ownership of the Cabatangan property is like wanting to have a “big headache” because of the gargantuan tasks it would entail to reconfigure and reconcile this property now PIECE-BY-PIECE with each of the hundreds of individual lots located within the Center; not to mention the time it will take to navigate the labyrinth of the fraudulent sales that were made by some scrupulous individuals and the relocation issues spawned by the illegal occupancy by the many presently residing in the Center. In short, the process will be messy!

However, all is not lost; if the City wishes to untangle the confusing, complicated and complex problems that this property has been in, the only person that can help them would of course be Atty. Lidinila Reyes (she has since been based in Hawaii). Only she can open the Pandora’s Box, so to speak. Understand Atty. Reyes was the person that was tasked to purchase the Cabatangan property then by the late Admiral Romulo Espaldon, and later, by my late father, Chairman Ulbert Ulama “Bob” Tugung. By commissioning her services, she can ably reconstitute the titling of the lot, which realistically speaking will take years and the possible filing of cadastral-related administrative cases and unlawful detainer type of lawsuits against, and eventual eviction of, the hundreds of fraudulent owners and squatters currently occupying the Center. By the way, to evidence her unparallel and unrivalled knowledge of the Cabatangan property, Atty. Reyes has even authored a book titled “This Land…Cabatangan.” In this book, she was able to put into proper perspective the issues – historical, sociocultural, political and legal, related to the Cabatangan problem. Basically, this is an extensive research work that she did that spanned a period of 26 years!