CA stops sale of ‘Payanig sa Pasig’ to city govt

MANILA, Philippines - The Court of Appeals has reversed its decision allowing the sale of some 18.5-hectare Payanig sa Pasig property to the city government after its private owner failed to pay real-property taxes worth P389 million. In an eight-page resolution, the CA’s Special Former 14th Division granted the motion for reconsideration filed by the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) against the Court’s March 31, 2008 ruling favoring the Pasig City government. The latest ruling was penned by Associate Justice Marlene Gonzales-Sison. The appellate court said the subject properties, owned by Mid-Pasig Land Development Corp., a private entity substantially controlled by Jose Campos, were voluntarily surrendered to the State and thus outside of the taxing power of local government units. Campos, a crony of the late President Ferdinand Marcos, voluntarily surrendered the corporation and their assets to the PCGG for being part of the ill-gotten wealth of the late dictator’s family in exchange for his immunity from suit. “By virtue of said relinquishment, the state correctly exercised dominion over subject properties. Indubitably, the subject properties, being ill-gotten wealth, belong to the State… Having settled that the subject properties belong to the state being in the nature of ill-gotten wealth, they are perforce outside of the taxing power of local government units,” the Court ruled. The real-property taxes being sought by the Pasig City government from Payanig sa Pasig cover the years 1987 to 2005. - GMANews.TV