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CEBU CITY, Philippines - The heirs of the late Chief Justice Marcelo Fernan want to repurchase a lot that the government bought 49 years ago for use as part of the defunct Lahug airport, but is now occupied by the offices of the Department of Public Works and Highways in Central Visayas (DPWH-7).
The heirs said that the 5,343-square-meter lot in Barangay (village) Lahug was never used for the purpose it was expropriated, giving them the right to take it back.
The property, otherwise known as lot no. 2, was among the parcels of land that the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) expropriated for an expansion of the Lahug airport on April 30, 1959.
The CAA paid the Fernan family P16,029 for the lot or P3 per square meter. Part of the expropriation agreement was to allow the family to buy the lot back for the same price if ever it was not used as intended.
The Fernan family, through a petition to recover property, is now asking the court to direct the Mactan Cebu International Airport Authority (MCIAA), which now has possession of the property and rented it out to DPWH-7, to sell the lot back to the family for P16,029, in addition to P500,000 in moral damages, P50,000 for litigation and other necessary expenses, and P100,000 in attorney’s fees.
Also, the family is demanding that MCIAA pay a monthly rental of P100 per square meter to pay for the use of the lot between the time the complaint was filed and when DPWH-7 leaves the lot.
The complaint, filed August 20 through the family’s legal counsel Joseph Randi Torregosa, has been raffled off to Regional Trial Court Judge Geraldine Faith Econg.
Econg has not yet set a date to hear the case.
The family, in their complaint, said they sent a letter to MCIAA last April 1 asking the airport authority to sell the land back to the family.
The MCIAA replied on May 12 refusing to sell the lot back, the family said.
Follow-up letters were met with the same defiance, the family said.
Before the lot was expropriated, it was owned by the Cebu Development Co. Inc. (CDCI).
In 1952, the government initiated expropriation proceedings to take possession of parcels of land in Barangay Lahug, including lot no. 2, for the expansion of the Lahug airport, which is now occupied by the Asiatown IT Park and the Waterfront Cebu City Hotel and Casino.
The expansion was to widen the Lahug airstrip, a project of the national government.
On April 30, 1959, the Court of First Instance of Cebu ordered the government to take possession of the lots, including lot no. 2.
The CAA assured CDCI that it could repurchase the lot at the same price should the government abandon the Lahug airport.
On April 6, 1961, the CDCI board passed a resolution assigning and conveying the company’s reversionary rights over lot no. 2 to the company president, Marcelo Fernan and his heirs.
On December 29, 1961, the Court of First Instance rendered a decision expropriating lot no. 2 and other parcels of land needed for the airport expansion program.
“Marcelo Fernan or his heirs and assigns did not anymore appeal the decision to the Court of Appeals on the belief that they could eventually repurchase lot no. 2 in the event the operations of Lahug airport will cease,” said the family’s complaint.
At the time the lot was expropriated, the Lahug airport was under the CAA. It was later placed under the Bureau of Air Transportation, which is now the Air Transportation Office.
Later, with the passage of Republic Act 6958, management, control and supervision of the Lahug airport was given to the MCIAA.
However, despite the transfer of control of the property, the expansion of the Lahug airport never materialized. The Lahug airport was later closed. Most of where the airport was once situated is now a thriving commercial center.
MCIAA has since leased lot no. 2 to the DPWH-7, which put up its regional offices there.
This was a “palpable deviation from the precise intent of the expropriation proceedings,” the Fernans said in their complaint.
Since the term of the DPWH-7's lease expired last April 1, lot 2 has become nothing more than an “idle” piece of land, said the complaint.
“Clearly upon the expiration of the said lease, the subject property does not anymore serve a public purpose even for a purpose different from that specifically intended in the expropriation.”
