Batangas mayor charged with land grab

A group of residents of Muntinlupa City has brought criminal and administrative charges against Mayor Meynard Sabili of Lipa City in Batangas province at the Office of the Ombudsman for allegedly trying to seize a 50,000-square-meter property that the residents owned.

In a six-page joint affidavit the residents filed on Thursday, the complainants accused Sabili of misrepresenting himself as a lawyer and a registered broker when he offered his help regarding their plan to sell portions of three parcels of land in March 2010.

In their complaint, Oscar Camerino, Efren Camerino, Dionisia Enriquez, Gerardo Enriquez, Conrado Enriquez, Bernardo Enriquez, Ramon Enriquez, Virgilio Enriquez, Mildred del Rosario, Nick del Rosario and Nelbert del Rosario—all residents of Victoria Homes, Barangay Tunasan—claimed that the mayor duped them into signing two agreements which gave him authority to negotiate the sale of the property on their behalf.

They asked the Ombudsman to order Sabili’s preventive suspension while the cases for estafa, grave misconduct, dishonesty, oppression and grave misconduct are pending in the antigraft investigating body.

“Meynard Sabili introduced himself as a lawyer and licensed broker, and convinced us that he can sell our land and help us in the cases we are involved in,” the residents said in their complaint.

“He encouraged us to allow him to handle the transaction for the sale of the land, (but) he made us wait for nothing and he did not extend any help,” they added.

The complainants said they decided to sell portions of their lands to finance the cost of litigation of the ownership issue over the property which had been pending in the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals since 1983.

Instead of assisting them, they said Sabili demanded that he be given the 50,000-square-meter property as his share as purportedly stated in the two agreements they signed in 2010.

They said the mayor also told them “that he will forcibly get the land if we do not give it to him.”

According to the residents, Sabili and several armed men went to their village on July 15, 2012, and threatened that “blood will be spilled” if they refused to give them the property.

“Sabili’s threats continue to haunt us until now, not just for our livelihood but for our safety. Since then, there have been people not from our place who come looking for (members of the) Camerino (family),” they said.

They said it was only last year when they learned that the mayor was not a lawyer or a registered broker after checking with the high court’s Office of the Bar Confidant and the Professional Regulation Commission.

Sabili cannot be reached for comment as of Friday afternoon.