11 October 2025, from Gems:

Chairman’s Report 2024-2025
Annual General Membership Assembly
Social Hall, Villamor Air Base Golf Course, Pasay City

Amenities…

I would like to thank each one of you for coming out today and once more honoring our cause with your presence – in person and online. Last time we gathered, we were numbered over one hundred strong. Today we are less in number, but are joined by many via zoom platform.

It is nonetheless inspiring to note that despite our relatively small number, we have through each assembly grown each year in faith, in resolve and in dedicated pursuit of our struggle to reclaim our land.

We have become more united in our lines of efforts and more vocal in our exchanges. We have even anchored all hopes in our trust in the Divine Providence starting with that Phase 678 Chapter’s short but powerful prayer, delivered by Lt General Sonny Lim.

Who says that people who violate the law cannot be made to answer or held to account? In today’s dark climate of corruption scandals, we see that the arms of the law can reach longer than the steps or flights of scoundrels.

Who says that authorities may and can ignore repeated entreaties? In today’s season of investigations, we are heartened to know that involved agencies can be compelled to respond in person or in writing.

And who says that Phase 678, already a non-resident victim community at AFPOVAI, may choose or be constrained to remain silent forever? For the past whole year, we have finally summoned the courage to show up and submit our individual stories to the Board and your Board have strengthened its resolve to speak truth to power.

What happened for the whole year? What has been our story?

My fellow lot owners, when we parted in September last year, we continued knocking on the doors of proper offices. We sent letters and official communications and followed up through our informal contacts.

But to this day we have yet to receive an official response from the Defense department despite our requests for calls. Our second letter to the former DENR Secretary has remained unanswered – until resignation mid year. Our letters to the Philippine Navy received no space of courtesy consideration.

In October we sent our Permanent Representative to the AFPOVAI Board in the person of MGen Guerzon – only to be met there with some unkind opposition in less than a year in defense of our rights, even as we supported all of the main board’s priorities – particularly the P35.5 million budget.

In December, Director Tess Mendoza started encouraging title holders to file complaints before key offices of the government and collected supporting documents. But in the same month, for reasons not made clear, DENR would stop the processing of Phase 678 applications and issuance of certifications.

In January of this year, finding we cannot simply get things to move without supporting funds, we convened in a special assembly and approved the monthly collection of P500 pesos from all Chapter members. A resolution and an IRR were passed in this regard.

In February, our legal initiatives and campaign to collect individual letters started to gain ground.

In March, we lost and paid high tribute to PGen Merardo Abaya, the last pillar of the four original plaintiffs that established the ultimate fact that the grounds on which the Navy Golf Course stands belong to us.

In April, our President, Atty Satuito spearheaded the initiative to include holders of orders of awards and encouraged them to file similar cases of repossession or eviction against the Navy.

We also took into our team Atty Marisol Boiser and prepared to set in motion our legal strategy going forward and even reached out to the Cavaliers’ Association of Lawyers. Here, Cav Atty Erikson Velasquez has been kind enough to offer his services.

In May, the construction of the Navy’s 9-story building within Blocks 99-102 continued unabated. In response, we called on all affected lot owners to come out and decry the trampling of their property rights and file the proper TROs.

The Navy then pressed ahead with their insidious countermove of having the titles of a number of Ph 678 members declared as fake and spurious.

So we moved to secure the release of one million from our 2 million peso-legal assistance fund, which would get approved by the mother board. Shortly thereafter, 12 members with titles and orders of award stepped forward to file legal cases for eviction against the Navy.

On the other hand, when we followed up our requests with DENR, we would quickly find out that Phase 678 lot applications and certification remained suspended in view of a complaint filed by the OSG. Added to their justification was a pending review of DENR’s internal processes with respect to titling.

The Navy not only instigated the suspension of all orders of awards as well as cancellation of deeds of sale of lots located within the Philippine Navy Golf Course in a bold and brazen effort to perpetually claim our private properties. So Atty Boiser promptly prepared a Motion to Dismiss. And Atty Satuito sent demand letters to the Philippine Navy.

In June, we started to link arms with the families with direct interest in the implementation of Supreme Court’s writ of execution, determined as ever to see them earn restitution and the first visible sign of victory in the Navy golf course. We also extended financial support to Radm Jimbo Bernardino and Adm Suarez.

In July, we began to explore the political dimension in combination with our legal strategy as Director Mendoza urged more members to approach her for documentary assistance – oftentimes at her expense.

In August, our efforts to systematically bring our plight to the awareness of the highest offices resulted in the completion of emotional letters to the President from several members, who provided supporting documents.

In the meantime, as our paperwork stacked up, the Navy’s 9-story building began to rise prominently on completed foundations within our territory like a monstrous foreign ship within the West Philippine Sea.

So we looked further beyond the horizon, this time for development partners ourselves, to visually create our future at AFPOVAI. In this regard we found very promising prospects.

Then in September, just as we found access to higher offices and prepared to sharpen our narrative for the public, we would learn that we were about to get muted and contained – but this time not from the outside, but from the inside of AFPOVAI. Hindi natin akalain na meron palang lumalaban sa atin galing sa loob, na mas gusto pa tayong maapi at hindi marinig ang boses at mapawalang halaga on a mere technicality.

The last ruling of DHSUD, declaring the last elections of AFPOVAI’s 4 Board Directors with votes counted from Phase 678 Chapter’s electronic votes, would force us to file a motion for reconsideration and confront a new reality within our midst: that some quarters in the AFPOVAI community would not want us to succeed.

So that led to our flurry of meeting activities, as indicated in my series of posted messages from “Lest We Get Muted” to “Extraordinary Circumstances”

A week ago, our Vice Chairman Gen Kintanar reported the receipt of our letter to new DENR Secretary Raphael Lotilla, which hopefully will pave the way for that Department’s audience with us in resuming their mandated administrative duties;

But the best news, the breaking news, is, just yesterday we learned that the Office of the President, through the Deputy Executive Secretary for Legal Affairs, respectfully referred to Secretary Gilberto Teodoro, Secretary of National Defense for appropriate action, subject to existing laws, rules and regulations, the letter of Mrs Teresita Mendoza, our Director Mendoza herself, requesting assistance on the execution of the 13 July 2020 Decision of the Supreme Court in G.R. Case No. 235619 relative to Presidential Proclamation 461.

The DND Secretary has been directed to provide advice on the action taken directly to the party concerned, copy furnished Malacanang.

Finally, the Department of National Defense is being tasked to respond to us in a way that would not depart from the dictates of PP 461, which gave us our birthrights in the first place.

But fellow lot owners, let us not get ahead of ourselves. We have been made to jump to our feet many times in the past. To our disappointment and dismay. But at the same time, let us not sit back.

The reason I posted our view on “extraordinary circumstances” and the resulting resolution for its declaration not only by our Chapter, but by AFPOVAI itself, is now plainly clear and self-evident. Our properties have long been under a disabling illegal military occupation. While our neighbors, Phases 1 to 6, have grown and developed as part of a bustling residential and commercial community, it has been impossible for us to develop our own facilities or conduct physical meetings and elections. We have been geographically dispersed and residentially handicapped as a community. And we not only meet, but even exceed the conditions prescribed by DHSUD in its Department Circular No. 2024-018 on “analogous causes of such a nature that the holding of on-site or face-to-face meetings and/or voting cannot be conducted. ”

Because if the visits of natural disasters or pandemics or restrictions on mass gatherings which normally end in due time are considered extraordinary, what do you call an illegal occupation of one’s private property abetted by state authorities that never stops, that is seemingless endless? What do you call a “physically handicapped,” “residentially disabled” and perpetually dispossessed community? It is grossly beyond extraordinary.

So what do we need to do? What should be our concerted and concentrated actions in this regard? It goes without saying that we must make our position defensible and strong. To do that, we must do the following steps:

Pass a Board Resolution to make it official – declaring that our Chapter is under extraordinary circumstances that generally prevent the physical holding of our meetings or elections due to the continued occupation by the Navy of our residential area;

Attach supporting documentation such as titles or awards showing ownership of our lots, photos, maps or reports showing the Navy’s use or its perimeter fencing; correspondence or complaints filed with government agencies (we have tons of them; and affidavits of members describing inaccessibility of the area;

Submit the resolution to AFPOVAI and documentation to DHSUD for concurrence or notification before proceeding with alternative modes of meeting;

Contribute to our collective and individual narrative as an abused victim of illegal occupation and government inaction;

Follow on and reinforce our legal courses of action while defending our ranks from exploitative opportunists; and

Go out in force and vote for our 4 candidates for the AFPOVAI Board of Directors – Ms Girlie Borromeo, Ms Carol Chin, MGen Mars Ilagan, and Mr Teng Mendoza. The numbers to remember are 2-3-5-7. Forget the others. Only they have our core interests at heart.

Past the high point of our General Assembly today, my friends, we need to support the two draft resolutions we prepared today – one, for our Phase 678 Chapter’s declaration of extraordinary circumstances that justify our means to e-voting in our exercise of fundamental civil rights, and the other similar resolution, for the adoption and approval of AFPOVAI.

For this is all about our voice as a dispossessed and deprived community – all these 49 years and counting. And this is all about our rights as property owners.

Kaya hindi lang ngayon, hindi lang sa susunod na linggo, kundi sa lahat ng bukas. Magkaisa tayo at lumaban tayo.

Kagaya ngayon, sa susunod na linggo, ipakita at iparamdam natin ang pinagsamang lakas ng ating pagkakaisa.

Mabuhay ang Phase 678!