DENR tight-lipped on Villar ‘reclamation’

The Department of Environment and Natural Resources yesterday refused to answer a resort owner's claim that it had sat for years on his complaints against real estate magnate and former Senate President Manny Villar.

An officer of the DENR has reached out to this paper to ask why the names of the Villars are being dragged into the case of the Wing-An Garden Resort, whose alleged encroachment into the Baloc-Baloc Creek is being blamed by residents for flooding in at least four Parañaque City villages.

The DENR officer said it should be enough at the moment that the case is being investigated by the department, as earlier stated by one of its undersecretaries, Juan Miguel Cuna.

It was resort owner Selwyn Lao who asserted that national and local government officials, including some from the DENR, may have been protecting the Villars by sitting on his complaints.

According to Lao, the Villars' real estate company illegally reclaimed a creek and turned it into subdivision lots and a road, causing flooding in the villages.

Lao maintained that Camella Classic Homes and Multinational Village residents should blame the Villars and not his resort.

He said that the Baloc-Baloc Creek that passed by his resort was a man-made waterway dug up by the Villars' real estate company to replace the real creek they allegedly reclaimed illegally.

Cuna told this paper on Monday that creeks and rivers "are not for sale" and, as public dominions, "cannot be appropriated or owned by an individual."

DAILY TRIBUNE has repeatedly sought comments from Camella Homes and the Villars before breaking the story last 18 December. A staff of Senator Cynthia Villar said the matter should be referred to the real estate firm.

Messages and calls to Camella Homes and former Senate President Villar have yet to be answered, including those made yesterday.

Likewise, efforts are also being made by this paper to reach out to Environment Secretary Ma. Antonia Yulo-Loyzaga for her comments.

A civil engineer, Lao, yesterday revealed that Camella Homes offered to buy him out of his property after portions of his land were encroached upon by the road they made.

"Since 2008, we have had communication with them. Their lawyer answered our letter and offered us P145,000 as payment for my lot that was eaten up by their road," Lao said.

"But they did not want to talk about the creek they turned into a road. The other portion of the creek was made into subdivision lots," he stressed.

One portion of the subdivision, he said, was sold for P12.5 million this year.

"So, it was not an ordinary person who did it. This person is highly knowledgeable on how to steal from others," Lao said, adding that he holds a land title to his property dating back to 1958.

"Their title was only 1988, then they only transferred it to the document in 2012 that is so suspicious how they came up with that. As a civil engineer, I really know how to process the titling of a lot," he said.