Claimants contest titling of UP land

Claimants to a 77-hectare portion of the University of the Philippines (UP) campus in Diliman, Quezon City, have filed an appeal in the Supreme Court for “substantive justice,” arguing that the state university’s title to the portion was unlawful.

According to the claimants—Quezon City businessman Jorge Chin and the heirs of Renato Mallari—the UP title was issued on May 3, 1914, a Sunday and therefore not a working day. This, they argued, made the land title “unlawful and contravened existing rules then.”

The date was one of the issues raised in the petition for “substantial justice” filed in the Supreme Court, where the claimants sought the high tribunal’s help in recovering the estate.

A portion of the property, along Commonwealth and Central Avenues, is only 250 meters from the iconic Oblation statue of the university.

Lawyer Melanio Mauricio, counsel of the petitioners, noted that “on Jan. 3, 1914, then acting US Governor General Luke E. Wright issued Executive Order No. 3, which decreed that work days were exclusive of Sundays and of days declared as public holidays by law or executive orders.”

‘No work on Sunday’

That is why, “on May 3, 1914, when the supposed title of UP was issued, the rule was that there was no work on that day, a Sunday. This only means that the issuance of the title on a Sunday was illegal,” Mauricio said.

In their petition, Chin and Mallari’s children urged the high court to review the case and rectify the error of its First Division which awarded the property to the university on Nov. 11, 2003.

In Supreme Court cases Nos. 133547 and 133843, the petitioners assailed as “unconstitutional” the 2003 decision of the First Division that rescinded their titles over the land in question, which is now being leased by UP to the Ayala Techno Park.

When interviewed, Chin, one of the country’s top hog and poultry feed importers, claimed a “grave injustice” had been heaped upon them with the alleged illegal seizure of their property which they allegedly owned since the 1970s. Mallari died in December 2013, a month after the Supreme Court issued its resolution favoring UP.

Through the Mauricio law office, Chin and Mallari’s heirs appealed to the tribunal to reopen and review the case under the doctrine of substantial justice.

Chin explained that their ownership of the 77-hectare property had already been affirmed by the unanimous, final and executory Feb. 10, 2000, decision of the Supreme Court’s First Division, as well as a finding by the Court of Appeals (CA) that they had a “better right” over the property than UP.

That is why the petitioners got one of the biggest shocks of their lives when the Puno ponencia overturned the Feb. 10, 2000, decision and set aside the division’s own Dec. 7, 2001, resolution that ordered the CA to determine the UP and Chin-Mallari group’s conflicting claims over the property.

The CA favored Chin and Mallari over UP based on a Department of Environment and Natural Resources verification report submitted to Quezon City Regional Trial Court-Branch 9, which said the two were the “true and absolute owners” of the property based on pertinent documents.

Contacted by phone, Rico Mallari, one of Renato’s children, told the Inquirer it was “unfortunate that my father died without seeing justice.” The Jehovah’s Witness traveling minister called his father a “victim of injustice.”