A legal angle to resolve a political issue
It is not a frequent happenstance that a reader would approach me to correct a datum in an article I have written. The other day, as I drove out of the gate of our shop in Barangay Mabolo, a person who is a namesake of our former city mayor, waved at me to stop. When I obliged, he politely requested me for a brief moment as he wanted to tell me something.
His candidness, on two points, disarmed me. First, Mike pointed out that my column last Thursday was rather incorrect. It was a certain Mr. Fernandez, and not the informal settlers affected by the demolition, who filed the legal action against then Mayor Michael Rama to stop the latter from clearing the Cebu City side of the Mahiga River at the North Reclamation Area. His face lit up when I meekly admitted the error. In fact, according to him, Mr. Fernandez lost the case, a piece of information that I could not readily validate.As my act of gratitude for his correction, I promised him that I would rectify that part of my Thursday column here, today.
Second, reader Mike proudly claimed to bea voter of Team Ram a, in the past elections. Followers of lesser mold would not want to identify themselves with losing politicians. This guy was different. He told me that while residing somewhere else, he was standing near the gate of our Mabolo shop because he just visited a friend living in the vicinity. His visit was political in nature. Whew, what a very early start!
I knew that my neighbors were working to own that road lot beside our Mabolo shop. What I did not know was that the allies of the former city administration were committed to allow these settlers to buy the lot where their homes were built. The loss of former Mayor Rama was but a temporary setback in the squatters' quest to legalize their squatting. Reader Mike was there near our Mabolo shop precisely to solidify their cause with a commitment bring back Rama to City Hall.
When I reached home, I hurriedly read back some documents. What I found out would break the heart of reader Mike. Even if they would consolidate their votes for Mike, the former mayor, there is no way the friends of reader Mike can own the road lot on the basis of the present deck of papers on hand. Here is why it is so.
It is true that the members of the city council, who would later on become friendly colleagues of the former mayor, passed are solution asking the city to assess the value the road lot. The purpose of the resolution was to use the valuation in selling the lot to the settlers.
It was that resolution that the allies of the former mayor used to convince the settlers to vote for them. Members of Team Rama apparently gave copies of the resolution to the concerned informal settlers and somehow told them that they would finish the process of transferring the ownership of the lot to them when in control of City Hall. That was seemingly why they cast their ballots solidly for the former mayor.
From a legal standpoint, however, the resolution referred to by Team Rama, would be unavailing. The road lot is a public domain and continues to be so. There had been no ordinance abandoning it as a public road. The fact that it is fully usurped by the settlers does not convert its nature to be alienable. Friends of reader Mike might just be ejected by the city government and the resolution they have in their possession is a worthless piece of paper.