By Atty. Antonio P. Pekas
I started off my legal practice in a corporation and then we (me and the other corporate counsel—this is a collective noun) got out and went on our own as a group with an office in Makati City. When I wanted to split from the group to spread my wings by forming my own group, the big boss who was the most experienced among us called me into his cubicle for a pep talk as he did not want me to leave. Young as I was, I had the industry of one who was eager. All nighters were par for the course, toiling over legal books. The reason I gave him for leaving was that I wanted to concentrate on business.
He started by saying, “there must be a reason why you took up law and became a lawyer “ He then delivered the coup de grace. As long as you are aggressive, there is enough money in practice. You will always have enough clients to see you through. I said, how can you be so sure about that?
He said, “there will always be a lot of cases around. You know why? Because one out of every two people is a son of a bitch.”
When I related this story to some young lawyers whom I was inspiring to try first private practice before eyeing employment with the government or the private sector, one said, “sir, that might not be true anymore. It might now be 1.5 out of every two people is a son of a bitch.” That might be true.
So there will always be disagreements and quarrels. And emotional that we are, many would opt to go to court. Once one does that, he enters the snake pit of lawyers and then would find out also how rotten our legal system is.
In Baguio there is another source of many cases, real estate cases. There are so many of such cases because of conflicting laws. Baguio City is one of two areas where you can get a title through the Townsite Sales Application (TSA) process where the minimum lot would be 1,000 sq. meters. The other area where there is such a thing as TSA is Olongapo City. The recipient would then pay the land at government valuation on installment. The gov’t’s price is of course always low.
Then there is that conflicting law where a public land (200 sq. meters) can be awarded free to anybody who occupied it for at least 10 years
So if you can’t get a title through TSA you can subdivide it to 200 sq. meter lots and then apply through the other process which is free. You have to use a number of names though as beneficiaries for you cannot be a beneficiary twice.
Then there is the CLOA (Certificate of Land Ownership Award) from the Dapartment of Agrarian Reform. One opponent once argued against me saying that that the law on CLOAs cannot be applied in the city and would only be applicable in agricultural areas. Then I showed him pictures showing that there were gardens in some parts of the area.
There is also another option to use, the Mining Law. A prosecutor once told me that he does not buy the argument that a land in the city was a part of a mining claim. Then I showed him documents that the area is part of a mining claim so the Mining Law should apply. The rules are different like in putting up a building.
A client once put up a building on a city lot even if he could not satisfy the requirements for a building permit, thus could be subject for demolition. But the mining law allows the putting up of a mining camp even without a building permit. There is no definition of a mining camp. It can be a shed or a concrete three story house. So his buildings are still there.
As if there is no end to it. There is still another option, the Indigenous People’s Rights Act (IPRA). Titles can be issued to ancestral lands through this law which has been abused so many times. You can get a title over one whole mountain by claiming it as an ancestral land. You can even claim a titled land by saying that you have a better right as yours is a native title which was there even before the western idea of land title was introduced to these islands by colonizers.
A group who abused this flagrantly were my kakailians from Mountain Province. There were so many cases (a number were filed by me) against people from Mountain Province claiming that the land of my Ibaloi clients belonged to them as it is their ancestral land.
As I once told younger lawyers, there is a lot of room for chicanery. “But you know when I get sick, I think about what I had been doing as a lawyer. Am thankful though I have yet to get involved in a serious accident.”
So I now meditate on God everyday.**
