JUST WHEN everybody thought it was safe to buy property in this country, along came this court case that confused, mystified, bothered and bewildered everyone in real estate.

The case involved the 34-hectare property known as the Manotok Compound near the Ayala Heights subdivision in Quezon City. It is a prime property, worth billions of pesos in today?s booming real estate market.

The Manotok family has been in possession of the property for the past 90 years. They had documents showing that their patriarch, Severino Manotok IV, bought the land from the government in the 1920s.

Unfortunately for the Manotok family, part of the Quezon City hall, specifically the Registry of Deeds, was gutted by a mysterious fire in 1988. Immediately, the Manotoks secured a ?reconstituted title? from the city government.

But in 1998, about 10 years after the fire of mysterious origin, another family laid claim to the property: A certain Teresita Barque-Hernandez claimed that her father, Homer Barque, bought the land during the Marcos regime in 1975.

The Barques asked the government for the ?reconstituted title? to be issued in their name instead, which the Manotok family of course contested.

The two sides have been fighting it out in court over the past 12 years. The case dragged on because the court, at first, ruled against the Barque claim, favoring the Manotok family. Later, all of a sudden, the court ruled in favor of the Barque group.

The Court of Appeals for one ordered the cancellation of the Manotok title and insisted that the ?reconstituted title? be issued to the Barque group.

The plot thickened when another group came forward to lay claim to the prime property?the couple Felicitas and Rosendo Manahan.

The Manahan couple admitted that the Manotok family bought the land. It was just that the purchase was not valid because the Manotok family did not have a so-called ?deed of conveyance.?

And so the Manotoks went to the Land Management Bureau for a copy of such document. They were denied.

The Manotok family finally got copies of the document from?get ready for this?the National Library.

After years of litigation?i.e., huge amounts in attorney?s fees and what have you?the Supreme Court finally ruled in favor of the Manotok family. Well, partly.

I said ?partly? because the high court said that the Court of Appeals did not have the authority to cancel titles, (remember, the Court of Appeals ordered the cancellation of the Manotok title).

That authority belongs to the regional trial court, the high tribunal said.

Also, the Supreme Court ordered the Court of Appeals, not the RTC, to hear the merits of the case and receive the evidence, so that the high court en banc could determine the real owners of the property.

The case is not yet over even after about 12 years of litigation. And all because of a fire in a government office!

This can happen again. Look after your titles. They may not be safe.

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THE Aquino (Part II) administration needs to fill up more than three thousand positions in the executive branch. Occupying those positions are still the carryover appointees of the previously cute administration of Gloriaetta.

One of them is the head of the Clark International Airport Corp., which owns and operates the DMIA (Diosdado Macapagal International Airport, named after the father of Gloriaetta). The airport is the main alternative to the Naia (Ninoy Aquino International Airport, named after the father of Benigno Simeon, aka BS).

Still heading CIAC is Nestor Mangio. He was among the so-called ?midnight appointees? of the previous administration.

Yet, if you look at the record of CIAC, you would think that the company needed the immediate attention of the new administration. The CIAC so far has not brought even a single investor into the airport project in Clark.

The CIAC, under Mangio, almost succeeded in getting a private investor in the airport complex, but not quite. For the past two years or so, a group in the CIAC was said to have been trying to railroad a deal between CIAC and a consortium known as Al-Mal Pride.

Members of the consortium were the Al-Kharafi group (Kuwaiti) and the local group Pride, which was said to be composed of politicians from Batangas.

The CIAC board threw out the deal, apparently acting with blessings from the Palace under the Lola, because the deal was said to be bad for the government.

Under the proposal, Al-Kharafi would take over operations of all the airport terminals in Clark. The previous administration turned it down, after more than 300 workers of CIAC staged a strike.

It was a losing proposition for the government. The Kuwaiti firm would give the government $20 million for 25 years in exchange for complete control of DMIA. In those years, the CIAC may expect the airport to earn $120 million.

Now, do the math.