BAGUIO CITY – Former Mayor and Rep. Mauricio G. Domogan is pushing for the abolition of the townsite sales application (TSA) in the disposal of alienable and disposable lands in the city because it is not in favor of the qualified actual occupants of the properties.
Domogan, who is the congressional bet of the Timpuyog ti Baguio, pointed out that the solution to the city’s land issues, particularly the disposal of alienable and disposable lands, is through the so-called miscellaneous sales application (MSA) to ensure that the rights of the actual and qualified occupant of the property will be protected.
He claimed that in the case of the TSA where public bidding is a major requirement for the disposal of alienable and disposable lands in the city, there are greater chances for the actual and qualified occupant to be dislodged because moneyed individuals will surely take advantage of the situation by submitting a high bid for the land to the detriment of the qualified and actual occupant.
Domogan said that actual occupants work hard to comply with the various requirements of the TSA, including the payment of publication, but when the bidding of the properties are done, they are often out-bidded by individuals with money that defeats the very purpose of the process and displacing them from the properties that they had been occupying for a certain period of time.
The former city official stipulated that one of his priority legislations when given the chance by the city’s electorate to go back to the House of Representatives is for the scrapping of the TSA and subsequently adopt the MSA as the primary mode in the disposition of alienable and disposable lands in the city to ensure that the rights of the actual and qualified occupants will be protected.
Domogan asserted that the government should not allow that actual occupants of alienable and disposable lands in the city will be displaced and thus, the best thing to do is work out the legislation of the eventual abolition of the TSA and the putting in place of the MSA as a mode in the disposal of alienable and disposable lands in the city to avoid the unnecessary displacement of actual and qualified occupants considering the need to protect and uphold their rights over their properties that they have occupied for certain period of time.
He disclosed that there had been many bonafide residents of the city who were actual occupants of alienable and disposable lands but were displaced as they were not able to win the bid for the said lands as there were moneyed individuals who outbidder them that caused the legitimate occupants to be landless in the end. By HENT