A favorable Supreme Court decision on the P47-billion Fort Bonifacio property is expected to significantly benefit the modernization program of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), the Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA) said.
“The high tribunal has spoken and justice is served, a clear message that no one is above the law, including usurpers and land grabbers from the ranks of retired military generals,” BCDA president and chief executive Arnel Paciano D. Casanova said in a statement Friday.
The BCDA was referring to an SC decision that upheld a Court of Appeals (CA) ruling canceling the Navy Officers’ Village Association Inc.’s (Novai) ownership of a 47-hectare parcel of land situated at the Bonifacio Global City in Taguig City.
The Novai is a group of retired military officers who earlier claimed ownership over the disputed property inside the former Fort Andres Bonifacio Military Reservation (FBMR).
Once fully recovered, the government will finally be able to pursue development plans for the lot now worth an estimated P47 billion, BCDA said. The agency is mandated by law to administer and develop military lands.
The plan is to improve the land in order to boost the defense capability of the country’s military.
The BCDA earlier asked Branch 67 of the Pasig Regional Trial Court to prohibit Novai from taking over the area, which it described as a public land or “inalienable land of public domain.
It said “any sale of land in violation of the Constitution or of the provisions of Republic Act No. 274 and Republic Act No. 730, and the Public Land Act are null and void; and that any title which may have been issued by mistake or error on the part of a public official can be canceled at any time by the State.”
The trial court, however, dismissed the complaint.
The Court of Appeals subsequently reversed the trial court’s decision and ruled in favor of BCDA’s position that the area is classified as public land.
The CA said the property was reserved for military veterans’ rehabilitation purposes, as prescribed under Proclamation No. 478.
In a notice of judgment promulgated on August 3 this year, the high court resolved “to deny Novai’s petition for review … as we find no reversible error committed by the CA in issuing its December 28, 2006 decision and March 28, 2007 resolution.”
Justices Antonio Carpio, Mariano del Castillo, Jose Catral Mendoza, and Marvic Leonen concurred in the decision.