BACOLOD City – A businessman from San Carlos City, Negros Occidental denied the accusation that he is a land grabber.
Sugarcane planter Wellington Uy was accused of causing the conversion of properties in Hacienda Medina, Barangay Rizal, San Carlos City into a non-CARP (Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program) area and thus taking them from their rightful owners.
But Uy told the press on Thursday that he was legally acquiring the properties.
He has been paying for the properties on an installment basis since buying it from the Philippine National Bank (PNB) on July 14, 2015, he said, citing bank documents.
While he has not yet fully paid for the properties, the businessman claimed that the PNB allowed him to develop them.
Uy refused to disclose the total land area of the properties and their cost.
The PNB foreclosed the properties originally owned by the late Domingo Medina and sold them to him, Uy said. The bank then sent out Notices to Vacate to residents in the area.
Uy showed the press a copy of a Sangguniang Panlungsod of San Carlos City 1980 resolution indicating that lands spanning 7 kilometers from a national highway in San Carlos to Bacolod City – including the properties he bought – were declared “commercial-industrial areas.”
Moreover, the San Carlos City government has classified the properties in question as “Growth Management Zone 3, Commercial-Industrial Zones” through Revised City Zoning Ordinance No. 14-27, said Uy.
That ordinance made the properties non-CARP areas, he stressed.
Uy further said the Community Environment and Natural Resources Office based in Cadiz City certified just this May 21 that the properties were exempt from land acquisition and distribution due to its topography.
Uy filed ejectment suits against the other claimants but these were dismissed.
He denied reports that the properties were relegated to the other claimants because the suits were junked.
The court dismissed the suits on the ground that it was premature for him to file them for not yet having fully acquired the properties in question, said Uy.
He said the title of the properties will be transferred to him once he has paid the full amount.
The Department of Public Works and Highways has sent notices to several other claimants to vacate the properties, Uy said./PN
