Big-time fakers of land titles face suit

MANILA, Philippines — The Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) is expected to open a can of worms when it files today cases of falsification of documents and making of untruthful statements against at least three suspects and several unidentified cohorts in the massive faking of land titles involving prime lots in Metro Manila where construction of high-rise commercial and residential buildings are ongoing, the Inquirer has learned.

Transmittals to be filed today in the Office of the Pasay City Prosecutor were mostly based on records of investigation that started in late 2013 by the Philippine National Police investigating arm on the complaints filed by the heirs of Eulalio Ragua, the purported owner of the highly-priced commercial lots.

In April this year, Daniel B. Franieza, the assignee of the Acopiado Estate, requested the then CIDG chief, Director Benjamin Magalong, to verify the Acopiado claim.

These complaints were later consolidated by the CIDG Legal Office headed by Virgilio T. Pablico into one case after seeing that the complaints point to the same syndicate responsible for the massive land-grabbing, using the same modus operandi in acquiring and selling prime lots in the metropolis.

A copy of the transmittal, which was seen by the Inquirer, showed that charges to be filed against the suspects are violations of Article 172 of the Revised Penal Code (falsification by private individuals and use of falsified documents) and Article 171 of the Revised Penal Code (making untruthful statement in a narration of facts).

The names of the suspects and other details in the six-page complaint sheets are being withheld pending the filling of the cases at 8 a.m. today.

After more than three years, the CIDG, then headed by Senior Supt. Albert Ferro, was able to arrest a suspect and recover the equivalent original copy of Ragua’s original certificate of title (OCT) 632 and had it examined by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation.

In the Franieza complaint, the falsification cases against the three suspected land title forgers and unnamed cohorts were mostly taken from the certified copies of records of the Regional Trial Courts of Pasay City, the Office of the Solicitor General, the Special 2nd Division of the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court.

The other claimants were the heirs of Eulalio Ragua, represented by a grandson, John Miguel Ragua, and his mother, Cecilia Q. Araullo.

The Raguas’ land title case became famous during the early 1980s when then Judge Ernani Cruz Paño of Quezon City (who later became the court administrator of the Supreme Court) ruled in favor of the Ragua’s petition for reconstitution of OCT 632, thus ending the 21-year-old court battle.

The Raguas’ court victory came 12 years after the death of the Ragua patriarch. However, the heirs of the now famous Eulalio Ragua Estate were not ready to face the appeals in the Court of Appeals (CA) by the two respondents to the case — the Tuazons and the government’s Philippine Homesite and Housing Corp.

After another eight years of court battle — the Raguas lost the appeal on May 30, 1989, with the CA sustaining the claim of the respondents that OCT 632 under the name of Eulalio Ragua was fake and spurious and there was no basis for its reconstitution.

With the reversal, the Ragua heirs filed a petition for review in the Supreme Court, which was denied on Jan. 30, 2000. On Feb. 28, they again filed a motion for reconsideration, which was just recently denied with finality by the Supreme Court.

‘Squatters’

The new twist on the Raguas’ claim came during the recent demolition of the shanties along Agham Road in Quezon City where the grandson John Miguel and his mother ironically resided as squatters on their own property.

The mother and her son went to the CIDG charging that a certain “Luna,” who had been extorting money from them in exchange for an “original” copy of OCT 632, the land title that covered the lot they were occupying. They claimed the title went missing after the Ragua patriarch died.

An entrapment operation was conducted on March 14, 2014, against Luna. A brief report sent to then PNP Director General Alan Purisima by then CIDG Director Benjamin Magalong identified the arrested suspect as Antonio M. Luna, a resident of Tulip Street, St. Dominic IV Subdivision in Quezon City.

The report said Luna was believed to be in “possession of a century-age Original Certificate of Title (OCT) for the Diliman Estate” when two CIDG officers arrested him moments after he accepted from the complainant, identified as Cecilia Alfreda Q. Araullo, a P5-million manager’s check laced with ultraviolet powder.

Luna denied the allegations. He said the check he accepted inside the bank was voluntarily offered to him by Araullo for his return of the missing OCT 632. Luna was later taken to the Quezon City Hall for the inquest on robbery-extortion and estafa filed by the CIDG.

P5-M deal

 In a sworn statement, Araullo said that sometime in 1990 — at the height of the court battle — Luna approached her common-law husband, Miguel Ragua, and tried to sell to them for P5 million the original copy of OCT 632, which Luna reportedly said was found by his father-in-law inside a sealed box floating during a flood in their place.

As the Raguas could not raise that amount, Miguel asked Luna to help him “pro bono” in his case, but Luna refused.

It turned out later in the investigation that Luna is the son-in-law of Miguel Soco, one of the lawyers who claimed to have represented the Raguas during their fight to recover the vast property.

The photostat copy of the OCT 632 being sold to Araullo by Luna was allegedly among the documents entrusted to Soco, when the Raguas filed a petition for reconstitution of OCT 632 in the Caloocan City court on Aug. 31, 1964. During that period, the vast land of the Diliman Estate was still part of Caloocan.

The heirs of the Ragua Estate, then led by the oldest son, Miguel, lost track of the documents after the Ragua patriarch and most of his lawyers died while the case was still pending in the court.

CIDG agents said that with the arrest of Luna and the recovery of the photostat copy of the original OCT 632, the Raguas may have a new and better fighting chance to reclaim the property.

“With this latest development, the owner of the title, or his heirs will have the right to enjoy and dispose of the land and the right of action against the holder and possessor of the land in order to recover it,” the CIDG’s Pablico told the Inquirer.