Who masterminded P8.7B land scam?

A land scam of such magnitude, carried out over three years, involving multiple government agencies surely had a mastermind. Who that is, Senators Dick Gordon and Manny Pacquiao must ferret out.

It’s a wonder the scam wasn’t discovered till four years later, in 2017. Expropriated land prices were bloated for highway constructions in three regions in Mindanao. Most of the lands were agricultural, worth P50-P500 per square meter. Yet overvaluations reached as much as P3,200, or 64 times more. The scam totaled P8.7 billion in 2013. The government’s budget for right-of-way acquisitions this year is P18 billion.

The Dept. of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) paid out P2.2 billion in General Santos City alone. Pacquiao hails from that small town where everybody knows everybody. Reviewing the names and land locations of 20 of the payees, he noticed they were all strangers. Odder still, their lands were of exactly the same area: 713 square meters each. They were paid P255.5 million in all, or P12.76 million each. Forty other payees got as much as P30 million each for slightly bigger plots. Pacquiao exposed the racket last Dec.; his Senate committee on public works is co-investigating it.

Gordon believes a syndicate was involved. Not only one but several DPWH field offices were linked. They couldn’t have pulled it off without outside help. The DPWH processing of expropriation payments requires firstly a certified true copy of the land title. This is available only from the Land Registration Authority (LRA), attached to the Dept. of Justice. Other proofs of land ownership are needed: previous years’ real estate tax payments, the official receipts of which come from the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR). The local government units’ city, provincial, and municipal assessors, registers of deeds, and treasurers also must sign certifications. Payments are released by the Dept. of Budget and Management (DBM). The Commission on Audit (COA) must review each of the transactions. Gordon’s Blue-Ribbon committee is leading the Senate inquiry.

Documentation, even for syndicated crime, passes through bureaucratic red tape. Most of the payments were released in 2013, mid-term of the Noynoy Aquino administration, 2010-2016. Preparations took most of the previous year however. Some of the land overvaluations began as early as 2009, the last year of the Gloria Arroyo administration. Payments continued to be processed till last year. The suspicion is that some of the DPWH, LRA, DBM, BIR, and COA officials who pulled off the scam are still in office. Gordon and Pacquiao are asking the justice department to investigate and file charges.

Murmurs are that an influential Chinese-Filipino businessman masterminded the racket. Somebody had to finance the tedious compiling of folders for each of the dozens of right-of-way expropriations, assessments, and payments. The modus operandi involved insider information on exactly where the highways would traverse. Then consolidators bought up contiguous agricultural plots from small owners, and advanced the equivalent zonal value to them. The aggregated lands were then reappraised at overprices. The mastermind needed to bribe the many field, regional, and probably national government agencies involved. In some cases the documents were fabricated. Some of the “expropriated” lands were government-owned to begin with, yet were reclassified as private. Such fakery means several personnel in each of the colluding agencies were in on it.

Gordon worries that the land titling system has been corrupted. The LRA is in the process of completing the computerization of land titles, but there surely were loopholes. In two instances in General Santos City, puny 90- and 130-square-meter lots were both retitled at 25,700 square meters, or two-and-a-half hectares. Real estate sales and leases, especially for job-generating investments, are in jeopardy. The economy would collapse. Nobody will trust land ownership anymore – unless the culprits are punished. And that should include the orchestrator.

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