BuCor to push through with Tanay project

DESPITE protests from environmentalists, the Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) will push through with the development of a 270-hectare land in an area within the Masungi Georeserve in Tanay, Rizal.

Acting BuCor director-general Gregorio Catapang on Friday said that pursuant to their five-year development plan, the property located within the forest reserve in Tanay will also be used as a housing site for its employees and “for the development and implementation of land use development plans and policies of the BuCor for the sustainment of its basic institutional food requirements.

Catapang said that the BuCor is the registered owner of the property.

He said a transfer certificate of title for the 270-hectare land in the villages of Kuyumbay, Layban, San Andres and Tinucan in Tanay town was issued in favor of the BuCor on Sept. 28, 2022.

The BuCor official said the parcel of land was originally registered under the Republic of the Philippines and covered by the Original Certificate of Title 3556.

Presidential Proclamation 1158 issued on Sept. 8, 2006, by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo allocated 270 hectares of the land as the new site of the New Bilibid Prison as recommended by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, he said.

“BuCor is the registered owner of the subject property by virtue of the transfer certificate of title issued in favor of BuCor. Existing jurisprudence dictates that until and unless it is nullified by a court of competent jurisdiction in direct proceedings for the cancellation of title, the transfer certificate of title issued under the name of the Bureau of Corrections remains indefeasible and binding upon the whole world,” Catapang said.