MARIVELES, Bataan—Alarmed by the proliferation of “land grabbers” or professional squatters in the province, personnel of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), Municipal Environment and Natural Resources Office, and barangay officials of Alas Asin, led by barangay captain Dante Malimban, tackled on Thursday the land grabbing problems besetting the province.

Captain Malimban said that most of those being targetted for squatting by land-grabbing syndicates are government-owned lands that are covered only by “rights, timberland, watersheds, and military reservations.”

Most of these being illegally occupied, Malimban said, are land owned by the DENR.

Newsmen learned earlier that most of the cases being lodged and investigated by the National Bureau of Investigations are online scams and land title disputes—fake and real ones.

According to Atty. Nathaniel Ramos, agent in charge of the NBI in Bataan, another 
 The top cases being investigated by their office are the land disputes, such as land grabbing, selling of fake land titles, and land grabbing, among others.

A first-class province, Bataan is beset by problems of squatting of lands—private and public—which are common and perennial headaches of authorities. And these kinds of businesses are making money.

A former police director who had become a congressman was able to amass wealth by selling lands once owned by the government. 

Newsmen learned that in Limay town, a woman who owned more than 14 hectares of land also lodged a complaint before the NBI after “professional squatters,” dubbed “land grabbers,” suddenly occupied her land. 

Worse, these syndicates had been able to sell part of her land to unsuspecting buyers. 

These professional land grabbers are even armed with guns to threaten the rightful owners; we were even fired upon when we inspected our land, said the landowner.

One of those land grabbers was able to put up a swimming pool and a concrete house despite the absence of legal documents for him to possess the land he was occupying illegally.

This land grabber, according to the land owner, who requested her name be withheld for fear of repercussions, had been able to sell a portion of her land to policemen and private individuals  despite the lack of legal documents to own these lands.

“He (the land grabber) was able to earn a huge amount of money from the land he grabbed from us by pretending that he owned my land,” the woman owner told NBI in her complaint.

Some buyers are biting to buy land in Bataan—whether it has a verified land title or rights only—then resell it for a bigger amount. 

Other land grabbers have resorted to immediately constructing fences and putting up houses made of light materials to hold their grip on the land they are illegally occupying.