The Biggest Landgrabber of Them All?

Well, maybe not the biggest. There must be bigger land grabbers in Baguio. But it’s amazing how one who has “titles to parcels of land measuring 501 square meters and 10,300 square meters” was able to expand her land area to 672,364 square meters. Read Vincent Cabreza’s story here.

Too often, when the issue of land grabbing in Baguio comes up, it’s the small time land grabbers who get the blame. Maybe it’s because their style of land grabbing is very visible. You know, they just build a tiny house in a small parcel of land and claim it as their own.

But what about the big land grabbers? The ones like the people involved in this story who grab big chunks of land with the complicity of public officials? The ones who mastered the art of “legalized” land grabbing?

Nah, they are rarely viewed as land grabbers. In fact, you shouldn’t be surprised if they’re being wined and dined by the powers that be. They are more guilty than the small time, “pipitsuging” land grabber but because they grab lands in “style” they become (or remain) respectable.

By the way, the biggest land grabber in Baguio would be the government. As we all know, it grabbed its Baguio properties from the Cariño’s who are still fighting to have their land rights recognized by the government, the very entity which grabbed the land from them.

SOMEWHAT RELATED STORIES: Ti Daga/The Land. The Malapiat, Rizal Tragedy.

2 thoughts on “The Biggest Landgrabber of Them All?”

  1. What about those who have ‘fixed’ their papers and managed to occupy uber prime lots on Upper Session Road (that is now occupied by a ritzy Baguio restaurant, and a seedy club beside it), and a nearby one on South Drive which is now an inn, owned by a politician’s uncle who occupied the same when his brother was city administrator?

    If we want to drive the squatters away, rich and poor squatters on lots big and small must all go at the same time, not one after the other.

  2. Hi Baguio Insider,
    Thanks. If only we have officials who are serious about making things right 🙁

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