PNP now owns about 1,160 hectares of land registered under AFP

Miami
July 25, 2008
Story 1: PNP now owns about 1,238 hectares of land registered under AFP

The Philippine National Police (PNP) is now the rightful owner of the real properties that they are solely occupying in the whole country after the PNP and the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) signed a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA).

There are about 1,238 hectares or 289 areas that are being solely occupied by the PNP, but the lands were registered to the AFP.

The signing happened at the PNP National Headquarters in Camp Crame last July 25, was attended by PNP Chief Avelino Razon, Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) Secretary Ronaldo Puno, Department of National Defense (DND) Secretary Gilbert Teodoro and AFP Vice Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Cardoza Luna.

As explained by Puno, “The police before did not have regional headquarters, all the regional quarters of the PNP are already formerly Philippine Constabulary (PC) headquarters. And in many provinces each Phil. Constabulary provincial command has its headquarters. So with all that they did not have an assigned headquarters. So, I would say virtually all the headquarters and the installations of the PNP in the regional and many in the provincial level are actually cover under this agreement.”

Puno added that this is already called for since 1990 after the passing of RA 6975 or an act establishing the PNP under the reorganized DILG. “during that time joint agreement was signed, but it has taken 18 years to come about.”

It took 18 years before they worked it out because of the long period of organization for the PNP and Puno admittedly said that they do not have plans yet for housing project for their personnel then.

“What good it would do to the PNP? Own housing, wherein there are funds for, there is great need for and will now be possible, we can’t do housing programs within as ordered by the president because we were not in the position of turning over title and take possession of the property,” Puno said. With the agreement now, they can already claim the lands that are solely occupied by the PNP.

On the MOA it said that, the PNP shall make an inventory on the properties in the name of the AFP that are solely used by the PNP. After which, the PNP and AFP will conduct ocular inspection on the said properties.

The real properties shall undergo relocation survey purposely to determine exact boundaries and the PNP shall bear the cost of the said survey activities.

The PNP shall shoulder all the cost and expenses relatively to transfer the real properties in name of PNP including taxes whether national or local.

The AFP shall convey transfer of all real properties except those properties which cannot be disposed of by the virtue of the existing laws.

For the PNP acquiring the lands that they solely occupying is the start of everything because they will also look on the lands that are being jointly occupied by the PNP and AFP. It will be studied on how and who will really have to acquire those lands which is about 3,490 hectares.

Among the lands that are now owned by the PNP are Camp Crame where the national headquarters is, Camp Karingal or QCPD, Camp Bagong Diwa or the regional office of NCRPO and Camp Castaneda where the Philipine National Police Academy is located.