Two-year Ft. Boni land dispute ends in violent clash; 4 hurt

A mass eviction of residents in the southern part of Fort Bonifacio in Taguig City erupted in violence on Thursday when the last few holdouts tried to block some 1,400 policemen and demolition workers.

Four people were wounded and six others were arrested when a group of male residents threw stones and molotov cocktails at the approaching antiriot teams and crewmen sent by the Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA) to dismantle homes in the 35-hectare Jusmag property.

The brief confrontation punctuated the two-year-old dispute between the BCDA and a group of residents led by Benjamin Zabat, a retired colonel.

Zabat’s group, which included families of active and retired military personnel, had insisted that they were the rightful occupants of a 10-hectare portion of the Diplomatic and Consular Area which is not BCDA property.

But in a press conference, BCDA vice president for business development Dean Santiago said that while the boundary between Jusmag and the consular area may not be clearly marked on the ground, past surveys had shown that the area covered by the demolition was within Jusmag.

Santiago also cited BCDA records showing that only 12 of the 96 families resisting the demolition were that of active military men.

The security force was able to appease the residents after going door-to-door and urging them to accept a relocation program prepared by the BCDA, which also sent trucks that would take them to a relocation site in Rodriguez, Rizal province.

Shortly after the eviction notice was served in May, around 204 families accepted the BCDA’s offer of financial compensation plus a P10,000 to P30,000 bonus and voluntarily moved to Rodriguez, Santiago recalled.

But an evacuee who had lived in Jusmag for nine years told the Inquirer that she and her neighbors decided to return to their old homes because the relocation site was prone to flooding. “I just left because I really didn’t have a choice,” she said.

Two hours after the clash, residents could be seen moving out with their bundles of clothing and other possessions, while others were carrying scrap building materials like wooden beams and galvanized iron sheets from their demolished houses.

The BCDA said it will turn the area into a mixed commercial and residential property to be developed by Megaworld Corp., which has invested over P20 billion to accomplish the plan in 15 years.

Twenty-seven percent of the proceeds from the disposition of the area will go to the Armed Forces of the Philippines, it said.

“We have been delayed for two years already, having dialogues with these residents. We expect to finish the demolition (on Thursday) for Megaworld to start the developments next month,” Santiago said.