BCDA takes possession of NOVAI property
The Bases Conversion Development Authority (BCDA) said the Supreme Court has denied with finality a motion for reconsideration filed by the Navy Officers’ Village Association Inc. ( NOVAI) for the ownership of a 47-hectare property in Fort Bonifacio.
BCDA president and CEO Arnel Paciano Casanova lauded the SC for the favorable ruling which he said would benefit the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the national government.
In a two-page notice, BCDA said the SC Second Division denied a motion for reconsideration by NOVAI of an earlier ruling decision allowing BCDA to take possession of the property.
“With the Supreme Court ruling, the BCDA can now proceed with the disposal of the 47-hectare property and generate billions of pesos to fund the AFP modernization program and bankroll government programs and projects,” Casanova said.
According to Casanova, the 475,009 square-meter NOVAI property is now estimated to be worth more than P47 billion based on the current selling price of approximately P100,000 per square-meter.
The NOVAI is a group of retired military officers which claimed ownership of the disputed property located inside the former Fort Andres Bonifacio Military Reservation.
“Rampant land grabbing where officers are involved affects the morale of our soldiers, and eventually weakens our Armed Forces,” Casanova said.
“As early as 2004 and as general counsel then, I made a commitment to the Feliciano Commission that I will do my best to pursue the cases against Southside Homeowners Association (SHAI) and NOVAI in spite of some generals who kept on dissuading us from doing so,” Casanova added, referring to the commission’s report that recommended legal action for the recovery of the JUSMAG and NOVAI properties.
The Feliciano Commission was a fact-finding commission created to address the concerns of soldiers involved in the July 2003 Oakwood mutiny.
The BCDA eventually won in September 2006 in its petition-in-intervention with the SC over a case against military officers occupying quarters at the SHAI area inside JUSMAG in Fort Bonifacio.
The former JUSMAG area has since been developed and is now known as McKinley West.
Casanova said winning both the NOVAI and SHAI cases put closure to more than a decade of legal battles to protect the rights and interest of the Filipino soldier against a few retired generals and their spouses who tried to get government land worth billions of pesos and claim it as their own.
BCDA remittances are used to help fund the national government’s development projects including the modernization of the AFP to improve the country’s internal security and external defense.
From 1993 to 2015, the BCDA has raised a total of P28.5 billion for the AFP from the disposition of former Metro Manila military camps through sale, lease and joint-venture developments.