Villar blasts land grab claim, warns of legal raps

Former Senator Cynthia Villar on Sunday pushed back against reports that she purchased a property in Bacoor, Cavite, while prohibited by law as a sitting government official at the time.

For Villar, her accusers might as well take a one-way ticket to the moon with their allegations linking her family to a land dispute involving a local farmer.

In a social media post, Villar strongly denied personally acquiring the property, saying that “the truth is not built on partial accounts or selective storytelling, but on facts.”

She stressed that, “to be clear, former Senator Cynthia Villar did not purchase the property located in Bacoor.”

She emphasized that she was prohibited from entering into business transactions while serving as a public official.

“These prohibitions are well-established and form part of the ethical standards governing public officials,” she said.

Villar also warned against what she described as false or misleading claims, saying that “we will also pursue appropriate legal action against those who continue to proliferate false information.”

Old issue

The issue stemmed from a family in Bacoor claiming they had cultivated the land for decades, only to be allegedly displaced by the Villars despite holding land titles.

Villar, however, maintained that the dispute involved the Bacoor family against Moonwalk Development and Housing Corp., which owned the property for more than 38 years until 2022, and not her or their real estate firm.

She pointed out that the Villar-owned Fine Properties Inc. only got to procure the property from Moonwalk through a memorandum of agreement dated 3 June 2022.

By the time of the transfer, the dispute between Moonwalk and the Bacoor family had long been decided.

To start with, the land had already been reclassified as non-agricultural before the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program took effect in 1988.

Likewise, she said the dispute had been resolved by the Office of the President on 7 July 2021 in favor of Moonwalk, clearing the way for the property’s transfer.

The Department of Agrarian Reform Region IV-A initially denied the request of Moonwalk, but the DAR Central Office reversed the decision on appeal, siding with the company.