NextGen Day

MANILA – In a decades-old territorial dispute with Makati City over wide tracts of excellent real estate in Fort Bonifacio, the Supreme Court (SC) has ruled in favor of the City of Taguig.

The high court confirmed the ruling of the Pasig Regional Trial Court (RTC) on the 729-hectare property, which may yield billions of pesos in local government revenue, in a 53-page judgment written by Associate Justice Ricardo Rosario and released by the high court on April 27.

“In fact, Makati was only added to the Fort Bonifacio site in 1972, during the administration of President (Ferdinand) Marcos, along with Pasig, Taguig, Paranaque, Pasay, and occasionally Pateros. However, subsequent proclamations did not always state that Fort Bonifacio is located within Makati. “Clearly, the greater weight of evidence favors Taguig’s viewpoint, consisting of simultaneous activities by legitimate authorities,” the panel stated.

“An examination of the issuances and ordinances pertaining to Fort McKinley and later, Fort Bonifacio, demonstrates that the vast majority refer to the contested sites as either within the jurisdiction of Taguig or beyond the jurisdiction of Makati,” the court stated.

Taguig’s claim to fame is based on its history as a pueblo in the province of Manila for over 400 years (now Rizal).

The municipality of Pateros swallowed Taguig and Muntinlupa in 1903, but in 1905, the municipality of Pateros was renamed Taguig and reacquired its old territory, absorbing Pateros and Muntinlupa.

Hacienda Maricaban, a huge estate that lay under the jurisdiction of many towns, was included in the area.

The owner, Dona Dolores vda de Casal, sold a piece of the property to the US government in 1902, and it was later transformed into Fort McKinley.

President Carlos P. Garcia issued Proclamation No. 423 on July 12, 1957, establishing Fort Bonifacio on the site of Fort McKinley. The proclamation said that the military reservation was located in Pasig, Taguig Paranaque, and Pasay, but did not mention Makati.

President Fidel V. Ramos issued Special Patent No. 3595 on January 20, 1995, conveying land to the Bases Conversion Development Authority (BCDA), and Special Patent No. 3596 on January 20, 1995, delivering parcels of land within Taguig to the Fort Bonifacio Development Corp. (FBDC).

The Pasig RTC Branch 153 decision on July 8, 2011, that “Fort Bonifacio Military Reservation is confirmed to be part of the City of Taguig,” was upheld by the ruling.

The court also upheld a 1994 writ of the preliminary injunction granted by the Pasig RTC, which barred the City of Makati from exercising jurisdiction over parcels 3 and 4 of Fort Bonifacio, preventing it from making modifications or otherwise treating them as part of its territory.

The Supreme Court declined to rule on one of Taguig’s arguments, namely that two Presidential Proclamations, Nos. 2475 and 518, issued by President Ferdinand Marcos in 1986 and President Corazon Aquino in 1990, respectively, violated the constitutional guarantee of self-determination by altering Taguig’s boundaries without a plebiscite by the affected residents.

It went on to say that the property issue might be settled without a decision on the legitimacy of the proclamations in question.

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