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Friday, March 29, 2024

GSIS accuses PPA of giving away North Harbor property

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State-run pension fund Government Service Insurance System on Wednesday accused the Philippine Ports Authority of allocating the former’s property at the Manila North Harbor to social housing without the knowledge and consent of the fund.

It said PPA executed a memorandum of understanding with the National Housing Authority City of Manila and port operators International Container Terminal Services Inc. and Manila North Harbor Port Inc. covering a five-hectare land as the resettlement site of informal settlers along Isla Puting Bato and its surrounding areas without indicating nor disclosing that the GSIS owned 1.2 hectares of the property.

“GSIS supports the government’s social housing program but it has to be done within  the purview of the law. The property is registered under the name of the pension fund. PPA cannot commit a property that it does not own,” GSIS president and general manager Jesus Clint Aranas said.

Aranas, in a letter to PPA general manager Jay Daniel Santiago, demanded that PPA rescind, modify or revise the MOU to exclude the portion of land owned by GSIS. 

He said if the MOU would not be rectified, the pension fund would be constrained to file the appropriate legal action to protect the interest of GSIS and its members.

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Santiago, in its reply to Aranas, questioned the validity of the GSIS title.

“The title speaks for itself. PPA’s argument  questioning the validity of GSIS’s  original certificate of title is a collateral attack not allowed by law. GSIS’s title may only be questioned in a direct attack filed before a regular court. This has already been ruled upon by the Office of the Government Corporate Counsel in 2015,” Aranas said.

Aranas said that from the start, GSIS was made to understand that its property would not be included in the land committed by PPA as a resettlement site of informal settlers along Isla Puting Bato and its surrounding areas. 

Aranas said it was long established that the five-hectare land assigned for social housing partly covered the GSIS property. This was discussed  repeatedly in the  interagency committee meetings on the disposition of the Parola Estate where PPA, GSIS, the National Housing Authority  and other government agencies sit as members, he said.  

Aranas said that in one of the meetings, NHA confirmed the overlapping of the properties based on its ocular inspection. The overlapping parcel of the lot is owned and registered under the name of GSIS under TCT No.272972 with a land area of 109,212 sqm.

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