CABANATUAN CITY—Residents occupying homelots at the Fr. Gregorio Crisostomo Estate in Cabanatuan City have expressed apprehension over the Summons and Notice of Preliminary Conference issued them recently by the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) Nueva Ecija Provincial Office calling them to meetings on separate dates this month.
The summons include the supposed new rental rates for the lots the residents occupy that have increased from seven centavos to P10 per square meter (sqm) for residential, and P1.00 to P25/sqm for commercial lots. The new rates are retroactive to 2006.
The residents were also required to submit certain documents and answer the summons within 10 days. Their failure to comply will be construed as a waiver and their cases will be submitted to the DAR Adjudication Board (DARAB), an in-house semi-judicial body, for decision.
What the residents deem objectionable about the DAR’s move is the sudden and jerky increase in land rental rates, which they consider as excessively high and the fact that they were never informed about them for nearly two decades.
Based on the new rates, residents occupying 300-sqm homelots will need to pay P30,600 in rentals annually. while those who developed their lots of the same area into commercial assets have to pay P90,000 rental per year. Most of the lots were originally farmlands.
The Crisostomo Estate in Nueva Ecija consists of farmlands owned by the late Fr. Gregorio Crisostomo who entrusted his landholdings to the government for it to administer and use supposedly for the benefit of the poor. It includes 110 hectares of agricultural lands in Sta. Rosa town and seven separate residential landholdings in Cabanatuan City with a total area of 55 hectares.
One of its Cabanatuan sites is in Barangay Mabini Extension where DAR has estanlished its provincial office. The agency has long neglected to communicate with its occupants, most of them poor who have remained ignorant about their supposed rental obligations. The relatively more able among them, in fact mistakenly thought the real estate taxes they pay to their local giverment already include their land rentals.
Reacting to the DAR summons, resident occupants of the Estate in Brgy. Mabini Extension banded together and organized themselves into what they now call “Samahan ng Nagkakaisang mga Residente at Kapit-Bahayanan ng Padre Crisostomo Estate, Mabini Extension, Cabanatuan City.” They critized the DAR action as “highly autocratic and inconsiderate amidst the obtaining Covid-19 pandemic crisis.
Headed by Teofilo DR Juatco, the group has sought a peaceful dialogue with local DAR officials to seek clarification on a number of issues, including the legitimate basis of the new rental rates, the actual intent of the late Father Crisostomo as written in his Last Will and Testament, and why DAR neglected to collect rentals over decades.
Juatco said they are not against paying rentals, but they want fair rates and in accordance with Fr. Crisostomo’s expressed intentions. He said they also plan to request DAR to adopt a “Rent-to-Own” scheme under which the rentals they pay will be credited as installment payments for their lots, the titles of which should eventually be awarded to them.
Available information indicate that Fr, Crisostomo, a Filipino priest who hailed from Malolos, Bulacan, joined the Katipunan’s revolt against the Spaniards. He was reportedly captured, jailed and tortured by the colonial authorities.
After the Filipinos triumphed, Fr. Crisostomo resumed his priestly functions and was assigned to Nueva Ecija where he managed to establish some landholdings. He reportedly entrusted them subseqntly to the government fot it to administer and use for the benefit of the poor.