|
THE
Court of Appeals (CA) has affirmed the public-auction
sale of the 18.4891-hectare “Payanig sa
Pasig” property to the
Pasig
City government following the failure of its private
owner to pay real-property tax in the amount of P389
million covering 18 years, or from 1987 to 2005.
In a
13-page decision penned by Associate Justice Marlene
Gonzales-Sison, the CA Fourteenth Division junked the
contention of the Presidential Commission on Good
Government (PCGG) that the Payanig property is
considered public property because it was surrendered to
the commission as “ill-gotten wealth,” thus, exempt from
real-property tax.
The
appellate court reversed the November 8, 2006 decision
of the Regional Trial Court in
Pasig City declaring
null and void the warrants of levy issued by the
Pasig
City
government and the subsequent public-auction sale of the
subject property held on December 2, 2005.
“The
validity of the real-property tax assessment dated
September 30, 2002, issued by Pasig City on the subject
parcels of land, the warrants of levy, the
public-auction sale of the subject parcels of land and
the corresponding certificates of sale, to effect the
collection of the tax are upheld,” the CA said.
The
Pasig City government, according to the CA, did not
commit grave abuse of discretion when it assessed,
through the City Assessor and City Treasurer,
real-property taxes on the Payanig property.
It gave
credence to the argument of the city government that the
said parcels of land are not public properties because
they are still registered under the name of Mid-Pasig
Land Development Corp., a private entity.
“Although the government, through the PCGG has
sequestered Mid-Pasig and all its assets including the
subject parcels of land, the sequestration per se, did
not operate to convert Mid-Pasig and its properties to
public property,” the CA said.
It
further held that even if the properties are already
owned by the government, the city government can still
issue tax assessment since the properties are being used
for commercial purposes.
Records
show that sometime in 1986, Jose Campos, a known crony
of then-President Ferdinand Marcos and the controlling
owner of Mid-Pasig and Independent Realty Corp. (IRC),
voluntarily surrendered the corporations and their
assets to the PCGG for being part of the ill-gotten
wealth of the Marcos family.
In
return, Campos and his associates were granted immunity
from suit.
The
subject properties are still the subject of litigation
between Ortigas and Co. Ltd. Partnership and the PCGG
pending before the Sandiganbayan.
On
September 30, 2002, the Pasig City Assessors Office sent
Mid-Pasig two notices of tax delinquency for the period
covering 23 years, from 1979 to 2001, in the amount of
P256.85 million.
On
October 14, 2005, the
Pasig City government
sent a final demand for payment of real-property tax in
the amount of P389.02 million.
Mid-Pasig
paid the amount of P2 million under protest, in partial
satisfaction of the assailed assessment.
Meanwhile, the PCGG sent communications to the Pasig
City government reiterating that the subject properties
are owned by the national government.
However,
the Pasig City government ignored PCGG’s assertion and
continued with the assessment and added penalties and
charges.
On
November 9, 2005, the Payanig properties were offered by
the Pasig City treasurer for public auction. On December
2, 2005 the properties were sold in public auction and
for lack of bidder, the same were sold to the city
government.
This
prompted the PCGG to file a petition for certiorari,
prohibition and mandamus before the RTC in
Pasig seeking to nullify the tax assessments and the
public-auction sale of the subject properties, which the
lower court granted.
In
reversing the lower court’s ruling, the CA agreed with
the Pasig City government’s position that since the
Sandiganbayan has not validly declared yet the
properties as ill-gotten wealth, the same cannot be
considered as public properties. |
