Alleged land-grabber, deputy quarrelling
Wilfredo Torres INQUIRER file photo
There’s trouble between the suspected leader of a land-grabbing syndicate who is seeking to gain control of a 23.7-hectare prime property in Quezon City and his deputy.
Wilfredo Torres on Wednesday said he wanted to revoke the special power of attorney (SPA) and a memorandum of agreement he had entered into with Samuel Rodriguez that would give the latter the bulk of the property should he successfully take control of it on his behalf.
Appearing before the House of Representatives’ committee on justice, Torres said he was in prison when he signed the SPA and deal with Rodriguez to pursue the reconstitution of the title under a 60-40 sharing scheme in favor of Rodriguez.
Torres, 80, said he had filed a revocation of the SPA in the register of deeds because Rodriguez had failed to comply with some of its conditions. Torres did not say what the conditions were.
Rodriguez said he would challenge the revocation of the SPA, if there was one, in court because Torres had not informed him of this action.
It was Rodriguez, armed with a court order, who led more than 100 policemen and security guards in swooping down on a construction site of Wilcon Builders and a Maria Montessori School in Quezon City on September 6 to seize control of a parcel of land. They failed to gain control of the property.
In the case of the property on Visayas Avenue which was conveyed to him recently by the Quezon City Regional Trial Court Branch 226, Torres said people living there had no choice but to recognize his right as his mother’s administrator of the big tract of land.
Sheriff’s assurance
The court sheriff assured the committee that he would not enforce the writ of possession issued by Judge Tita Marilyn Payoyo-Villordon once the 60-day temporary restraining order lapses on November 11 without informing the committee.
Representatives of the Quezon City Police District said they would just rely on the sheriff to help implement the writ.
Marikina Representative Federico Romero Quimbo questioned the priority of execution of the court’s writ of possession on Montessori School at the time when students were about to go home, as well as on Wilcon Builders.
Iloilo Representative Niel Tupas Jr., chairman of the committee on justice, said validly titled homeowners could not be victims here unless Torres directly attacked their titles in court.
“So if they want to evict the homeowners, they will have to look at each title. If there are 400 titles they have to directly attack and file 400 cases,” he said.
The disputed property encompasses Sanville 1, 2, 3 and 4 subdivisions which include the K-Ville townhomes, K-Square and Metro Heights subdivisions, Arfel Homes, Sadel Court, Fernwood Gardens (including the St. Francis Chapel) and a portion of the Claret Seminary—all in Barangay Culiat; and the Montessori School of Quezon City and a Wilcon Builders outlet under construction on Visayas Avenue.
Upon questioning by congressmen on his court cases, Torres admitted having been charged eight times for various offenses, some involving land cases.
He said seven cases, including the sedition charge filed during martial law, were eventually dismissed.
Freedom Village
At that time, Torres said the now defunct Metrocom believed he was using the squatters to fight the government by allowing them to live on what he claimed to be his mother’s 21-hectare property, Freedom Village, but which was marked “no tresspassing” by the government.
Torres said he received conditional pardons from two former Presidents—one from Ferdinand Marcos after he was convicted in a lower court for estafa through falsification for a land dispute in the 1970s, and the other from Corazon Aquino for sedition in the 1990s.
Torres also said he had sought the dismissal of the eight case, filed by then Vice President Noli de Castro in 2005, because the government’s lack of interest in pursuing it. De Castro was then the chair of the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC).
This angered Manila Representative Amado Bagatsing, who was HUDCC vice chairman and head of a task force that arrested and charged Torres, as he reminded Torres that the case was still pending in court.
Bagatsing also questioned Torres on why he had allowed infrastructure to be put up on the contested land on Visayas Avenue in the first place if he really owned it.
“If truly he was the owner of that piece of land, what took you so long to claim that land?” he asked.
Unimpressed, Sorsogon Representative Salvador Escudero, a resident of Sanville subdivision, said: “You have a very colorful life. I say Mr. Torres that you should have pursued a political career.”
Asked to elaborate on the other properties that he had also claimed under his mother’s name, Torres said there was the biggest tract of land, the San Pedro Estate owned by the late Don Ignacio Jurado, in Bulacan province.
Another was the extension of the so-called Sumulong Estate which extends from Pasig City to Culiat in Quezon City.
When Tupas asked if Torres could be considered a real estate magnate for claiming vast tracts of land, Ilocos Norte Representative Rodolfo Fariñas butted in and said, “Point of clarification, did you say ’real estate magnate or magnet?” to the cheers of the audience.
Quimbo tried to clarify Fariñas’s query, saying it seemed Torres was attracted to real estate property like a magnet.
Torres protested the insinuation, saying this was simply so because the properties he was claiming were all controversial.
He said his mother, who inherited this land from his grandfather since 1894, filed for a reconstitution of the title as early as 1966.
Spanish titles
But Representative David Kho of the party-list group Senior Citizens, reminded Torres that all Spanish titles had been revoked by a presidential decree issued by Ferdinand Marcos, and that the Supreme Court had also declared these null and void.
Kho also said there was a syndicate renting out the property to informal settlers, but Torres denied he was involved in it.
Rodriguez admitted having received sums of money from informal settlers in the questioned properties but Torres was quick to point out that he had no knowledge of this.
Torres said he had not evicted anyone or received payments for lands he had claimed in the name of his late mother, Dominga Sumulong, who died in 1983.
He assured the committee that he was not connected with any syndicate which may be renting out any of his mother’s supposed property without his knowledge to informal settlers.
‘King of squatters’
He said he was not into eviction. “That’s why I became king of the squatters for protecting the interests of the squatters. There’s no consideration. I never accept any kind of payment,” he said.
Torres said the land in Quezon City was owned by his parents and people occupying it should pay him.
He said he did not solely own the prime land on Visayas Avenue as his two sisters were also entitled to the property.
