A ray of hope dawned on the 140 families who were ordered by the court to vacate a privately-owned in barangay Apas, Cebu City.
The Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) discovered that the lot previously owned by a certain Eustiquio Godinez was expropriated by the government in the late 1930s.
The OSG through its lawyer Vernie Hernandez yesterday filed a petition seeking to cancel the reconstituted lot title issued to claimant Mariano Godinez before the Cebu City Regional Trial Court.
The OSG said Godinez purportedly made “false representations” in order to be declared the owner of the contested lot.
Named respondents in the case were Godinez and the Register of Deeds in Cebu City which is the custodian of all records and titles of real properties in the city.
The OSG requested the court to declare as “null and void” TCT No. RT-6757 covering lot 937 in Godinez’s name.
The plaintiff also asked the court to order Godinez to surrender the title to the Register of Deeds and to pay for damages suffered by the affected families.
The Register of Deeds was also requested to cancel Godinez’ title.
Rep. Tomas Osmeña of Cebu City’s south district yesterday went to the Palace of Justice to lend support to the families.
“It’s a big boost to those families who were kicked out by some claimant who I believed died a long time ago,” he said.
Osmeña also said it took a while for the Solicitor General to secure the clearance signature from the Department of National Defense, which supposedly owns the contested lot. The contested lot is located inside Camp Lapu-Lapu in barangay Lahug, Cebu City.
The expropriation of the lot was intended “to carry out the development program of the Philippine military. The lot was registered to Eutiquio Godinez.
But nearly 15 years after Felisa Cip, Godinez’s representative, got the payment from the government, Godinez filed a petition for judicial reconstitution of the lot title in court. With Intern Jeanymae Ardiente