CABANATUAN CITY – The court has ordered the city government of Cabanatuan to pay P17 million to the owners, three of them now over 70 years old and two dead, of a landed property it has taken from them for over 16 years now.
In his decision promulgated the other day, Regional Trial Court Branch 36 Judge Raymundo Z. Annang, ordered Mayor Julius Cesar V. Vergara, in his capacity as city mayor, and the Sangguniang Panlungsod, to pay the petitioners P17,027,900 as just compensation for 7,240 sqaure meters the prime property situated in Paco Roman Extension, Barangay Barrera, which the government converted into road since 1989.
Three of the petitioners, Ramon Melencio Jr., Lourdes Melencio Grecia, Gregoria Melencio Mina, have died while the case was in progress, court records showed.
Atty. Lydia Bauto-Hipolito, the petitioners’ counsel, said Gregoria Mina died last week with unpaid bills amounting to about P1-million at St. Luke’s Medical Center. The court also ordered Vergara and the Sanggunian to pay 50,000 as attorney's fees and P50,000 actual expenses and damages.
Hipolito said the decision was a victory to the complainants who "are already in their twilight years [over 70s], as in fact, three of them already died.”
Hipolito had filed on Oct. 20 with the court a "Motion for Partial Execution" pending appeal of an amount of at least P10 million, in the interest of justice and" for good reason" the fact that the petitioners are the owners of the land in question, adding that the two surviving petitioners in their late 70's "are all now sickly, and are taking regular medicines just to sustain their health and prolong their lives a bit more."
The court stressed that the city's failure to pay is "unfair to, and in violation of the constitutional right of the petitioners to just compensation.” - Armand M. Galang
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