City Environment & Natural Resources Office (CENRO) officer Leandro De Jesus said that ongoing budget woes have effectively put a stopper on the validation and resolution efforts covering some 2,000 land title claims backlogged for up to decades.
According to De Jesus, there are 2,219 pending derivative titles stemming from so-called “211 titles,” which require processing and validation before they can be either properly granted or denied.
However, with the lack of budget and personnel, the CENRO is only capable of processing 8 said titles every year, with De Jesus saying that the current backlog may reach up to 277 years of processing before it clears up at the current pace.
To solve this problem, De Jesus proposed to the Baguio City Council the creation of a local task force composed of the city government, Department of Environment and Natural Resources – Cordillera (DENR-CAR), and Registry of Deeds (ROD). The goal would be to expedite the processing of pending applications for validation.
The so-called 211 titles are those issued under Civil Reservation Case No. 1 Record 211, which were declared void by the Supreme Court because the court that issued these titles had no jurisdiction. The said titles can be legalized only upon undergoing validation proceedings.
To validate titles under PD 1271, several conditions must be met. Firstly, the land must not be within any government, public, or quasi-public reservation, such as forest or military areas, as certified by the appropriate government agencies. Secondly, the current title holder is required to pay 15% of the assessed value of the land. Additionally, titles obtained through fraud or misrepresentation during the reopening of Civil Reservation Case No. 1 are not eligible for validation under this decree.
