By Cav Guillermo “Gems” Molina Jr. II

Fellow AFPOVAI 678 Lot Owners:

OUR MAIN LINE OF EFFORT

Last October 2021, the burden transferred hands. As the newly elected Phase 678 Chairman, I should have promptly reached out to all of you. But even during the transition I felt rather uneasy being thrust into the face of an enormous challenge, with so many tasks to do, so many concerns to cover, and so little in terms of resources. 

While I was glad to finally help lift the weight off the back of Commodore Tony Suratos, who had painstakingly labored for two decades pushing our seemingly Sisyphean cause forward, my own shoulders are not broad or strong enough to carry the hopes and quiet desperations of all the members of our AFPOVAI Phase 678 Group, many of whom have now been pushed by time and circumstance with limited options. Neither are the hands of our new set of officers, including director consultants, who have volunteered their time to do their best in the service of our association. 

The task of claiming what has been reserved for us by Presidential Proclamation 461 in 1965 and upheld by the Supreme Court last year (2020) – the possession and ultimate development of the current PN Golf Course as our own AFPOVAI Phase 678 community – may look like a suspended scenario of irresistible force versus immovable object following the filing of the motion for reconsideration by the Solicitor General before the highest court in behalf of the Philippine Navy. But we are neither discouraged nor deterred. We are determined more than ever to lock arms, keep our heads down, and gain every yardage.  

In resuming pace, we first saluted the accomplishments made thus far by Commo Suratos and thanked him for leading AFPOVAI 678, particularly in solidifying our case through position papers, taking legal actions, making numerous calls on high offices at the height of the pandemic, getting decisions from the Secretary of National Defense, and anticipating the turnover of the golf course through preemptive security arrangements and potential development approaches. (At 85, he is still as active as ever.)

Then we recognized the pressing need and urgency of advancing our interest through a right singular approach, a kind of a “one thing” focus within the next several months, aware of our greatest strength in law, cognizant of right opportunities, but concerned at the same time about our weaknesses – notably in strategic orientation, administrative processes and unity as an organization. 

And finally, we acknowledged that we have not actually come together as one solid group and community in active engagement with each other, connected through all means available, and dedicated to our common ends. While the courts up to the Supreme Court, the DENR, the DND, the AFPOVAI Board, and majority of AFPOVAI lot owners have begun moving to our side, we ourselves, as AFPOVAI Phase 678 lot owners, including TCT holders, legitimate awardees, and qualified allocatees, have to yet to form a solid front, rear and center. 

Whatever our interests and however they might diverge in the ultimate disposition of our lots, we should never be distracted from our main goal today of getting what has long been overdue us, our piece of land and service inheritance at AFPOVAI.

On taking on this burden, your new set of officers have therefore resolved to be clearheaded in strategy and focused only on the tasks and targets we can deliver during the first half of our term. Reassessing the current position of AFPOVAI Phase 678, and planning along the directions set by our previous Chair, we listed at least eight (8) important objectives: 1) Recalibrate strategy and lines of effort; 2) Refocus key targets and measures;   3) Establish administrative efficiency; 4) Increase operational effectiveness; 5) Develop strategic partnerships; 6) Generate funds and resources; 7) Cultivate members’ trust and solidarity; and 8) Pursue inclusive security and development. 

Clarification on each objective will come later.  For now, simply oblige me to explain our main line of effort.

In the main, we have chosen to steer clear of the legal battlefield which principally concerns the four (4) original plaintiffs from our association even as the final decision is bound to affect us all. The point is, we can no longer afford to wait indefinitely for the resolution of the MR.  We cannot bind our hands and feet to the case we are not a party to and unwittingly turn ourselves hostages to elements beyond our control.

Instead, we have decided to resume course for all lot owners and pursue the administrative process of completing and validating the documentation of all applications in behalf of every AFPOVAI Phase 678 member, whether awardee or allocatee, regardless of payment status, knowing fully well that at the end of the day, only the certified proper documents, particularly the TCTs, will count and matter for each one of us. Without those titles, we are defenseless.  We have no protective armor or weapons to wield. Without them, we have nothing.  

Presidential Proclamation 461, promulgated in 1965, is clear. The AFPOVAI area is excluded from the Bonifacio military reservation. It is an alienable and disposable public domain. And within it, Phase AFPOVAI 678 is included as part of the contemplated “decent place of habitat and fitting tribute to retired and active members of the AFP/PNP who meritoriously rendered the noblest services to the government and the Filipino people,” which is basically AFPOVAI today. 

Also, and more importantly, there is no law prohibiting the processing of the documents of lot owners.

Unfortunately through the years, the administration of our documents was not properly carried out primarily because our Phase 678 area got occupied by the PN Golf Course, a facility that was developed 11 years after the proclamation of PP 461 by the Philippine Navy, which has no authority to classify or reclassify lands or claim it under some exclusionary clause.

So we needed to recalibrate. Instead of taking independent actions, we’ve engaged the mindful participation of the AFPOVAI Board not only to make them distinctly aware of our issues and concerns, but to more importantly seek their sustained support and priority assistance, being the mother board whose moral obligation, in fairness to all, should be to at least help the unsettled members of AFPOVAI 678, attend to the least of our brethren, and leave no one behind. 

And to ensure success, we have decided to do it in within the authority of the Executive Branch, in full coordination and cooperation with the proper agency mandated with the administrative responsibility over the disposition of our claimed property, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), headed by former CSAFP, Secretary Roy Cimatu, an AFPOVAI Phase 1 lot owner. 

Our big goal is to simply secure the titling of all our lots (for those without TCTs yet) and our target and timeline for this is 100% by the end of June 2022.  By any measure, it is an audacious goal. But given the 40 years that had passed since the awarding of the first lots in 1981, and considering the affiliation of the current DENR Secretary with the retired military and the six months remaining in his term, cooperative joint effort, more than prudence, is the better part of valor. Now is the best time to pursue the administrative process right through the Central Office in Quezon City.

Thus, last November 29, your new set of officers, together with the new AFPOVAI President, retired General Arthur badilla, paid a courtesy call on Secretary Cimatu and explained to him in no uncertain terms our predicament. The good Secretary promptly showed his concern and promised to help facilitate the documentation process – remarkably up to the titling stage. 

Then a week later, last December 7, the same group met with him at the Central Office, this time with the DENR legal team and relevant staff, as well as selected members of the AFPOVAI Main Board, to discuss how we could best move forward. There we found out one thing: the processing of documents covering AFPOVAI Phase 678 lots have been suspended by DENR since 2005, for unexplained reasons, even as orders of awards and the process of titling somehow continued and worked to the advantage of a number of individual applicants. 

Unfazed, we took this as the first and foremost issue to address.

As a result of such initial engagement, Sec Cimatu, who relieved his memories as a lieutenant with then a measly monthly pay of P320, his joy in acquiring his AFPOVAI lot, as well as his concern for those who have long been deprived of their possession on account of the Philippine Navy’s operation of the golf course, not only took up our cause and put premium on the legacy of heroism of our soldiers, but more importantly gave unequivocal instructions to, among others: 

1)  Lift the suspension of the processing of AFPOVAI Ph 678 documents through his signed new administrative orders;

2)  Create a Joint Task Force between DENR and AFPOVAI Ph 678 to serve as a joint administrative and decision mechanism for coordinating, executing, managing and overseeing the key activities of the two parties;

3)  Create a DENR Mobile NCR Team to support the administrative process in coordination with AFPOVAI Ph 678;

4)  Designate Focal Persons to ensure accuracy of records, reconcile pertinent data, and complete needed requirements at the working levels;

5)  Maintain the AFPOVAI lot acquisition value at the original price of P15 per square meter, but with an imposed penalty (if applicable) of 4% per annum for delinquent payments based on the dates of issuance of orders of awards;

6)  Expedite the completion and processing of all documents up to the issuance of TCTs for all legitimate and qualified lot owners before the end of June 2022; and  

7)  Observe the ten (10) – year moratorium on the selling of lots based on the issuance of TCTs as provided by law. 

The orders to lift the suspension may very well have started to move the tipping point.

As a follow-up, we firmed up our action plans to secure quick wins and safe foothold every step of the way. Last Tuesday, December 14, the prospective members of the JTF met via Zoom and agreed to come up with a draft JTF document, delineating the distinct and common roles and responsibilities; meet every week of every month beginning January 2022 for progress updates and decision-making; have a Joint Working Group similarly hold weekly meetings to process documents, handle conflicts and resolve issues; designate Focal Persons to provide info requirements and expedite procedures; and jointly deliver on an increasing number of weekly targets and monthly targets. 

Our joint administrative mechanism, you may note, has quickly moved on its legs, and we are beside ourselves with joy that this has begun to happen our way.  Our counterparts at DENR, in fact, reinforced their commitment by scheduling follow-on meetings to help us realize our initial harvest of at least 66 updated applications, 56 of them already with complete requirements and ready for elevation to the titling stage. Due to incomplete documents, however, the interview and processing of the 10 could not be completed, and will have to be moved to January 6, 2022. 

On 18 December, during the Regular Board Meeting, Chairman Santiago approved our draft resolution creating the DENR-AFPOVAI Joint Task Force that would expedite the processing of all documentary requirements up to issuance of TCTs, andstressed his full commitment and support to us. 

On 21 December, we held our 678 Chapter Meeting to refine our talking points with the DENR Task Force, identified the members of the JTF from our side, and reviewed the list of applications for first and second submissions. 

Then yesterday, 23 December, the interim JTF met again, both physically and via Zoom, to clarify forthcoming schedules, target commitments and administrative procedures. Admitting their lack of manpower to support the sudden shift in one of the priorities of the DENR Secretary, particularly in favor of AFPOVAI 678, the Head of the Licenses, Patents and Deeds who is serving as Vice Chair in the JTF committed additional resources and regular physical visits to AFPOVAI office and even ocular inspections of the golf course. In contrast to past experience, as observed by Commo Suratos, notably gone from the demeanor of the DENR side was their seeming reluctance to assist with our applications.

Modesty aside, we could not have probably wrapped a better Christmas gift or brought happier tidings to you.   But we are sobered to realize that out of the 704 lot owners (with the exception of the 4 plaintiffs), only 153 as of this date are in good standing. My friends, we are bound to ground ourselves to a halt without everyone’s cooperation on this matter. We therefore enjoin everyone to come forward and update their status in our books or reach us first through our AFPOVAI Ph 678 viber chat board. 

We are determined more than ever to press on with our plan, but your new set of officers cannot do this alone. We need your fair share of time, talent or treasure, or of any kind of networking resource to help us gain the high ground after we have broken through.

We need you to be available when requested, physically or virtually, by the JTF, by AFPOVAI 678 Board, or by any concerned office of DENR. 

And we need your support, particularly in keeping this within the bounds of our chosen strategy and not outside of it, which could cause us unnecessary delays or court unwanted variables. We do not welcome, for obvious reasons, anything – political or legal or social or personal – that would detract from or derail our focused effort from this chosen track.  While we anticipate the resolution of the MR or feel the growing interest of big developers in our 678 area or continue to plan for the orderly transfer and conveyance of our Phase 678 property, there will always be the right occasion and time for that and other concerns.  

The conditions beyond June 2022 under a new political leadership may not be as conducive to this kind of joint approach we are now taking – which wasn’t done in the past. Sec Cimatu put it on the wall during our first meeting, “bakamagbago ito under a new Secretary.” He has personally committed to help us through until his last day in office.  We do not want – and I personally reject – the prospect of our imminent success getting overturned into a crashing failure.

Fellow Phase 678 Lot Owners, let us derive enough confidence in our main line of effort. We understand the position of the Philippine Navy and see where they’re coming from – and hold no ill will against them. They are not our enemy. To set it in context, in a way, by operating the golf course, they have also kept illegal settlers at bay. (Currently, AFPOVAI has a big headache with illegal settlers.) But we ourselves need to secure the one thing that will prove our ownership and possessory right to the land they have long occupied: our individual TCTs. And we are now doing just that. 

So let us bear ourselves to our main line of effort, the administrative mode of securing our titles, singularly focused on the processing of each document, quietly supportive of each other, and excited at the thought that this time DENR is pushing along with us and even leading the effort.  _Walang bitawan. Walang iwanan._

After all these years, we can finally break through and secure our future – with malice towards none and with charity for all. 

God bless AFPOVAI. God bless AFPOVAI 678.  God bless our solidarity. 

Merriest Christmas and Most Auspicious New Year to one and all!

• MGen Gems Molina Jr.II (Ret) PAF
• Chairman, AFPOVAI Phase 678 Chapter