MONTHLY REPORT OF ACCOMPLISHMENTS
(JANUARY 7 – FEB 4, 2022)

Esteemed Fellow AFPOVAI Phase 678 Lot Owners:

Today, I am pleased to report that as of Friday, Feb 4, 2022, our JTF has so far interviewed 167 lot owners, broken down as follows: 1st week of Jan 2022 – 7; 2nd week – 43; 3rd week – 39; 4th week – 43; and 1st week of Feb – 35. Together with last year’s haul of 103, the number of completed interviews now total to 270. On the strength of our current pace, we are confident of meeting our target of 500 interviews by the end of March, which is enough to cover all lot owners without deeds of sale yet inside the PN Golf course. That’s the good news. 

As we had planned after our first official meeting with DENR Secretary Roy Cimatu on Dec 7, 2021, we have been off to a running start. Not exactly a racing start, since, as you might recall, we were not all prepared, had no office or equipment or nine-to-five management team, were woefully understaffed, and lacked material resources. The DENR guys from the Central Office in QC were not as quite ready, far busier as they were with their day jobs. On top of that, all of us, of course, were seriously affected by the pandemic. 

But we’ve gained considerable mileage. We’ve quickly gathered force in this viber group and moved from 160 to 271 members in a matter of four weeks. Our newest additions are Jimmy Ylanan, a US Coastguard grad, ship designer and nationalist advocate, USec Ed Gongona, BFAR’s top honcho, and MGen Vic Guerzon, my former 205th Helicopter Wing squadron commander and a self-made businessman. Good to even hear of former Baguio City Administrator Sir Carlos Canilao’s unreserved vote of confidence today. 

We’ve rallied behind our new strategy to claim our lots within and around PNGC without necessarily confronting any perceived enemy or fighting any interest group. We’ve managed to consolidate as a group with one clear purpose and defined goals notwithstanding previous disagreements. We’ve allowed every member’s word or voice to be heard even as we made sure that truth and reason prevailed. We’ve given space to views from fellow lot owners from around the world, specially Sir Lito and Sir JP. And we have not discriminated any member, any group or anyone in our movement going forward. Yes, we have chosen to be all-inclusive, instead of exclusive.

We’ve operationalized the JTF and ramped up the interviews from 10-15 to 40-45 per week. We’ve tightened the weekly schedules of investigators and optimized the number of DENR personnel to work with us on a regular basis. And we’ve so far pulled all available contact numbers and corresponding files to match in order to ensure a steady stream of lot owners for interview and record validation. 

We have released all needed certificates of good standing to DENR regardless of the membership payment status of our Ph 678 lot owners if only to accelerate the train of the interview process, and not leave anyone behind. In strong positive response, several members have resumed paying their membership dues and arrears over the previous years. In fact, since December 2021, the amount of payments (as of the third week of January 2022) have reached over P312,000.00, providing us renewed assurance of support for our weekly operational and administrative expenses as well as the purchase of needed computer equipment. 

We’ve gained not only the commitment, but more importantly the full support of the AFPOVAI Board and participation of the current AFPOVAI President BGen Art Abadilla in our decision meetings. We’ve got the cooperation of NCR Regional Executive Director Jacqueline Caancan and the driving commitment of no less than the DENR Secretary Gen Roy Cimatu as our champion and guarantor. You bet, we’ve got all the right people and all the right pieces in all the right places. 

Hence, even with the pending official activation of our DENR-AFPOVAI JTF, our two sides have already managed to reach several points of agreement and began to act on as many immediate joint or separate action items as possible these past four weeks. For transparency, a summary of our agreements includes the following:

1. General plan of action to fast-track the processing of AFPOVAI Ph 678 lot applications within a timeline of six (6) months from January to June 2022.
2. Lifting of the DENR memo, signed by former Sec Mike Defensor, which suspended the processing of all AFPOVAI Ph 678 applications since 2005.
3. Creation of the DENR-AFPOVAI Joint Task Force as joint decision and executory mechanism for the purpose of effecting the transfer of lots from DENR to all legitimate and qualified lot owners of AFPOVAI Phase 678 Chapter.
4. Validation of the status of all qualified, legitimate and similarly situated lot owners of AFPOVAI Phase 678 and determination of issues central or related to the titling process.
5. Activation of a DENR-AFPOVAI Mobile Team to do joint investigations at AFPOVAI in support of the administrative process.
6. Expeditious handling of all requirements, resolution of key issues and pursuit of all other tasks in the conduct of official business by virtue of the signed DENR Special Orders 2022-009.
7. Pegging the price of each lot at the original cost of P15 per square meter, albeit with imposed 4% per annum penalty for delinquent applicants as reckoned from the order of award.
8. Resolution of bigger issues and concerns through signed joint resolutions.
9. Systematic priority processing of lot applications without issues up to the deeds of sale stage, followed by applications with lacking requirements and those with outstanding issues, in order to avoid clog-ups at the end.
10. Conduct of virtual, instead of face-to-face, interviews of lot owners to expedite the admin process, sustain operational efficiency and overcome the tyranny of distance and the covid-19 pandemic.
11. Inclusion of all AFPOVAI Ph 678 members with lots outside the PN golf course area in the administrative process.
12. Inclusion of all AFPOVAI Ph 678 members regardless of payment status or affiliation, including those who might turn out to be associated with the Cobarrubias group, in the interview and processing of documents.
13. Prevention, detection and reporting of any suspicious transactions by third parties related to AFPOVAI Ph 678 applications and prohibition of agents or intermediaries.
14. Notarization of all deeds of sale and automatic transmittal to the Registry of Deeds.
15. Submission by DENR to AFPOVAI of courtesy copies of the notarized deeds of sale and corresponding transmittals to the Registry of Deeds.
16. Exclusive processing of all AFPOVAI Ph 678 applications only through the DENR-AFPOVAI JTF.
17. Awarding of the first deeds of sale through the JTF process in March 2022.
18. Full AFPOVAI Phase 678 representation and direct participation of AFPOVAI Pres Abadilla in all decision meetings.

FOOTNOTE: Sir Jess, I never expected the masterstroke of including previous important messages in your own created website or blog space. Suddenly, we didn’t have to copy-paste past updates into the viber inboxes of our new members. So heartening to see our commitments quickly come to life in such a short period of time. Rereading my lines which were first delivered last December 2021 here in our viber chat group, I got reminded of Winston Churchill. “We are masters of the unsaid words, but slaves of those we let slip out,” he said. Now, with your AFPOVAI Ph678 UPDATE at cyberarnis.wordpress.com with the password Gems, wala na akong pag-asang baliin ang mga sinabi ko or walk back or withdraw. The die is cast. But that’s alright. It’s our vow and our word – and not mine alone, but the Board’s, the management’s, the JTF’s, the DENR’s and that of the DENR Secretary, himself. I hope all members would learn how to pin it, so that updates would appear on top of the viber messages each time they log in. Awesome job, sir!

[By the way, may we request you to post as well the January 2022 report, “So Far, So Good,” for the information of the others who just came? Time is past due for every Phase 678 lot owner to know and understand.] 

Again, huge thanks. Dios Mabalos na marhay, Sir Jess.