BAGUIO CITY – Mayor Mauricio Domogan Wednesday called for vigilance in protecting forest reservations and public lands now in dire situation due to bogus land claims and titles.

            The mayor said protected areas like the Forbes Park, Wright Park, Botanical Garden are now in danger due to the wanton issuance of Certificates of Ancestral Land Title (CALTs) by the National Commission on Indigenous People (NCIP) while Busol watershed is also mired in squatting cases.

The mayor said that while the city government is doing its best to protect the said supposed reservations, support and vigilance from the public is necessary to rally authorities into acting in favor of the city in its on-going legal battle to recover said forest reservations and retain them as such.

“These are the bigger problems (for which) we need everybody’s support because if we lose in our legal battle to reclaim these areas, then we can just imagine what will happen to our environment and to our city,” the mayor stressed.

The mayor said this cause is more realizable as the lots involved are not private properties but part of public domain that are supposed to be inalienable.

President Benigno S. Aquino III in August last year promised to tackle the city’s problems on land disposition which include the issuance of spurious CALTs over these forest reservations.

            The city has pending petition through the Office of the Solicitor General with the Court of Appeals for the cancellation of the CALTs issued over parcels of land within said reservations and of titles covering prime pieces of property which were subdivided and eventually expanded by several hectares in Pacdal and Dontogan barangays.

            The OSG has the sole authority to initiate proceedings for the cancellation of the spurious titles and it has committed to fast-track the reversion proceedings.

             “We maintain that these lots are not alienable and part of our forest reservation and the titles issued to them are not valid so let us work together to reclaim and protect them,” the mayor said. – A Refuerzo