A congressman from Camarines Sur on Friday insisted that the Camarines Sur provincial government had acted legally based on the instructions of the Department of Transportation and within the purview of the order issued by the regional trial court mandating the fast-track implementation of the Naga Airport modernization project.
Camarines Sur Rep. LRay Villafuerte said that it was Rep. Rolando Andaya who violated the law when he resorted to violence and harassment last month to protest the implementation of the airport modernization project in Pili, Camarines Sur.
“It’s Andaya who chose not to follow the court’s order on the writ of possession,” Villafuerte said, referring to the directive of the Pili Regional Trial Court ordering the evacuation of the occupants in the land that forms part of the project.
“It was Andaya who exercised threats and intimidation through violent means instead of letting the legal process take its due course,” Villafuerte said. “Nowhere in the decision of the RTC does it state that the CamSur provincial government should obey the law or that it violated the law.”
Almost a dozen members of CamSur’s Sagip Kalikasan Task Force trooped to the Pili Municipal Police Station in the province last April 18 to report the acts of physical and verbal abuse that they suffered that same day in the hands of Rep. Andaya who wanted them to abandon clearing operations for the Naga airport modernization project that is part of the “Build, Build, Build” program of President Duterte.
Eleven SKTF members complained to the police about the violent acts committed against them by a knife-wielding Andaya who was accompanied by his bodyguards and Pili Mayor Tomas Bongalonta Jr. at the start of the clearing operations for the airport expansion project in Barangay San Agustin in the town of Pili.
Based on the official police blotter entries, among those who complained to the police on April 18 were Lito Sumpay, Ryan Herrera, Saetiel Pielago and Angelo Refran—all of whom reported that Andaya had terrorized them with a knife and threatened them with harm if they did not leave CamSur right away.
As for the writ of possession, Villafuerte said the motion of the lot owners involved in the case for the court to dismiss and recall the writ was denied by the RTC.
“Wherefore, premises considered, the Defendants’ motions to dismiss and to recall the writ of possession are DENIED for lack of merit,” stated the ruling issued by presiding judge Vivencio Gregorio Atutubo III of the Pili RTC.
In the ruling, Atutubo said that CamSur Gov. Miguel Luis “Migz” Villafuerte, as plaintiff, should in the meantime “desist from further causing the implementation of the Writ of Possession issued in these cases” because the Solicitor General should be the proper entity to represent the DOTr in this issue because it is a national government project.
The incumbent governor is the son of Rep. Villafuerte.
“That (referring to the Judge Atutubo’s order) is a big victory for “‹the people of C”‹amSur because it affirms that the Naga airport project will continue and,”‹more importantly, be put on the fast track. The court order just affirmed that the Naga airport project will proceed,” Rep. Villafuerte said. “In addition, the Memorandum of Agreement between DOTr and the provincial government is still in effect and in force.”
“Also, we expect that after the complaint is amended under the Office of the Solicitor General, the writ will be reinstated and it will fast-track the airport project,” the congressman said.
Rep. Villafuerte said that “Andaya, being a lawyer should understand the processes more and should just let the court decide on the matter rather than put the matter in his own hands by violently intimidating and harassing employees of the provincial government who were only doing their job of securing the airport project site.”
The provincial government of CamSur has been overseeing the implementation of the Naga Airport Development Project on the strength of the province’s MOA with the DOTr in November 2016.
Under the MOA, the DOTr has committed to set aside P402 million for this airport project–to be taken from the DOTr’s budget in the General Appropriations Act (GAA) of 2015–for the acquisition of lots for the affected residents and for their resettlement as well.
The provincial government, in turn, has been tasked under the MOA to identify the affected residents and to supervise the purchase of their lots, based on the principle of just compensation, and their relocation elsewhere.
Moreover, the Pili RTC issued on July 5, 2017 a Writ of Possession ordering the affected residents not to exercise their rights over their lots and to “vacate” these lands in favor of the DOTr project.
Even before the court’s issuance of this writ last July 5, 2017, the provincial government already started three years ago the negotiations with the concerned farmers and their tenants and even with informal settlers on the expropriation of the affected lots.
Majority of the affected lot owners had already formally decided to turn over their lands to the provincial government while a number have agreed in principle to do so and are just awaiting the court’s decision on what the “just compensation” should be for their property.
To speed up the expropriation process and settle the issue amicably, the provincial government has opted to pay both the landowners and the tenants who have been tilling the affected lots.