CAN the city government of Dagupan still take back the Awai (San Jacinto) lot – or the money paid for it – despite its already being placed under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP).

At the very least, the money paid to the lot seller, a city alderman said.

A three-term city councilor here who was privy to the deliberations for the now controversial real property in the hilly town, and somehow, the approval of the sale itself, said he and some colleagues were not told the whole truth by the previous
Lim administration that the Awai lot was subject of litigation.

It appears from the admission by City Councior Jose Tamayo, a lawyer, that even the then acting city legal officer Roy Laforteza, whom the council summoned over the issue, did not mention about the lis pendens notation on the lot title at all.

Still, despite the CARP coverage of the are that the city government only learned belatedly with the assumption of the Fernandez administration, Tamayo believes the city can file a case to recover its P16 million payment against Jose Mariano Cuna, the person from whom the city bought the property in 2002 to serve as a sanitary landfill and for other investment purposes.

Cuna, records showed, bought the land from one Estrella Sangalang for P7 million in December 18, 2001.

The land was sold by Cuna to the city government even if the property was the subject of a petition for redemption by nine tenants and their representatives before the Department of Agrarian Reform Adjudication Board (DARAB) for P16 million on April 11, 2002, or just a matter of four months

Despite being informed of the development by the DARAB, the city government under former Mayor Benjamin S. Lim did not answer the amended petition filed by the tenants as soon as they learned from reports that Cuna had sold the property to Dagupan City. Neither did it file a motion for reconsideration with the DARAB when the latter body decided in favor of the tenants

Tamayo said if it was true the tenants won in a case before the DARAB, the city government option is to go after the seller, Cuna.

Cuna must return every single money paid him in the transaction or be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, the councilor said.

Curiously, the city government also did not even avail of its right to retain not less than five hectares of the property despite the notice of coverage served by the DAR provincial office on March 2, 2004