BAGUIO CITY – City officials recently requested President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. to issue an Executive Order or Proclamation for the transfer of the open spaces, institutional areas, and unallocated lots at the Scout Barrio barangay social housing site to the city government subject to the payment of the value of the unallocated lots as may be allowed to be disposed of for private use and other conditions as may be appropriate and proper.
Under Resolution No. 378, series of 2024, local legislators stated that as suggested under Presidential Decree (PD) 1216 issued on October 14, 1977, open spaces, as defined, may be donated to the local government unit which is in accordance with the declared policy of the State that the territorial and political subdivisions of the State shall enjoy genuine and meaningful local autonomy to enable them to attain their fullest development as self-reliant communities and make them more effective partners in the attainment of national goals by providing them with a more responsive and accountable local government structure instituted through a system of decentralization as provided under the pertinent provisions of Republic Act (RA) 7160) or the Local Government Code of the Philippines.
Further, it should be seen that the local government is in the best position to administer the open spaces of the housing site and in coordination with appropriate agencies like the Department of Human Settlements and Urban Development (DSHUD) to consider the use of the exempted unoccupied areas.
The council claimed that in the operation of the former Camp John Hay Air Station in the city, now known simply as the John Hay Air Station, many civilian employees of the station were allowed to occupy and live in certain areas of the reservation, more particularly at the Scout Barrio area that became one of the city barangays.
As early as 1955, these workers had been clamoring to have their occupied lots segregated from the former military reservation that was transferred to the State-owned Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA) that was created pursuant to Republic Act (RA) 7227 otherwise known as the BCDA Act of 1992.
The body claimed that the city government, sympathetic and supportive to the clamor and mindful of the need to have its barangays excluded from the John Hay area or reservation, adopted various resolutions for the purpose, including Resolution No. 362, series of 1994, setting the conditionalities in the formulation by the BCDA of the master development plan for Club John hay.
The implementation of the conditionalities was thus incorporated in the master development plan for Club John hay that was approved with the adoption of Resolution No. 349, series of 1996 which approved the provisions of the said master development plan prepared for the BCDA by the Planning Resources and Operations Systems as contained in its final order dated October 1995 which conformed with the 19 conditionalities set forth in Resolution No. 362, series of 1994.
According to the resolution, while the implementation of many of the conditionalities may have to be continuous, perhaps, most especially condition No. 4 for the exclusion of affected barangays, it is again said that the city imposed the conditions for its concurrence under Section 117 of the Local Government Code and also by the BCDA law and as duly acknowledged by the former President Fidel V. Ramos in his issuance of Proclamation No. 420, series of 1994 creating and designating a portion of the area covered by the former Camp John Hay as the John Hay Special Economic Zone pursuant to RA 7227.
The Supreme Court (SC) declared that RA 7227 expressly required the concurrence of the affected local government units to the creation of special economic zones, and went further to explain that the grant by the law on local government units of the rights of concurrence on the bases’ conversion is equivalent to vesting a legal standing on them, for it is in effect a recognition of the real interest that communities nearby or surrounding a particular base area and its utilization.
Moreover, the SC noted in another decision that the passage of Resolution No. 362, series of 1994 in line with Proclamation No. 420, series of 1994, where in setting aside BCDA claims of exemptions from revenue measures in the exercise of police power, it did recognize the existence of an equitable sharing agreement between BCDA and the city from the gross income obtained from the operations within the special economic zone as provided in condition No. 9 of the resolution and also of the commitment to the allocation of 25 percent of John Hay Poro Point Development corporation’s lease rentals or 30 percent of its net income from operations within the special economic zone, whichever is higher, provided in condition NO. 10 which it both deemed to have been entered into voluntarily by the BCDA.
On December 18, 2001, former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo issued Executive Order No. 64 declaring the property of the BCDA located in Scout Barrio as a housing site and providing for its disposition to bonafide occupants.
The area referred to by the said order is the entire Scout Barrio barangay which is a portion containing an area of 15.9 hectares of that parcel of land covered by Transfer Certificate of Title No. 62887 in the name of the BCDA.
The council asserted that it will be noted that the exempted area covers open spaces consisting of among others, forest areas, waterways, road lots, including the Loakan Road which is a national road, a basketball court, a children’s playground, the police station and barangay hall, a school site, the health center and chapel and also reserved unoccupied areas which may be disposed of for residential purposes as reflected in the plan. By Dexter A. See
