City owns lands claimed by affluent squatters
Posted on September 30, 2002 - Filed Under News |
IT is the responsibility of the Dagupan City government to drive away the squatters of an accreted area along the shoreline in Bonuan Binloc for which the former has a littoral right, the same being adjacent to the 72-hectare Tondaligan Park.
This was disclosed by Fernando Estrada, community environment and natural resources officer, who said that based on the survey conducted by his office, the area being squatted by rich families is part of an accreted area.
Estrada said his office already wrote the city government to inform it that it has jurisdiction over the accreted area occupied by the rich squatters being adjacent to the Tondaligan Park which it administers.
He said he has already written more than 50 individuals who built rest and vacation houses and constructed concrete and barbed wire fences in the area to notify them that the city government has littoral right to the area they have squatted on.
This means that the applications that they filed and intended to file for these lands are deemed cancelled in favor of the city government, he said.
House Speaker Jose de Venecia, Jr. recently wrote a letter to the CENRO office in Dagupan asking them to remove all the squatters from the area as soon as possible.
Estrada said the DENR can not issue any permit unless the city government itself grants the same which is very remote.
He admitted that his office issued a certification as to the status of the accreted land but clarified therein that this can not be used to secure ownership of the same.
Saying the certification made by his office was of no value at all, Estrada stressed that only the city government can drive away occupants of the area that it is administering.
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