Mandaue City files suit to recover Looc lot from Ecodemcor

Mandaue City Mayor Luigi Quisumbing and Vice Mayor Carlo Fortuna formally filed the complaint before the clerk of court of the Mandaue Regional Trial Court on Jan. 15, 2019 seeking to recover the city property in Barangay Looc sold to E.C. Development and Management Corp. (Ecodemcor) in 2015. / photo by Rosalie Abatayo

CEBU CITY, Philippines — The Mandaue city government will petition the court to nullify the sale of the 35,821-square meter lot in Barangay Looc that was sold to a private firm in 2015 for P50 per square meter or about P1.79 million.

Mayor Gabriel Luis Quisumbing, Vice Mayor Carlo Pontico Fortuna and the city’s attorneys arrived at the Office of the Clerk of Court of the Mandaue City Regional Trial Court at about half past 9 a.m. on Tuesday, January 15, to formally submit the complaint against E.C Development and Management Corp. (Ecodemcor).

Mandaue City, represented by Quisumbing, filed the civil case against Ecodemcor seeking to  to nullify the deed of sale of the reclaimed government land in Looc, a  coastal village, entered into by the past city administration and Ecodemcor in 2015.

“We consider this, quite possibly, the biggest and most corrupt deal in Mandaue City. It is important for us to be able to set this transaction right so that we will be able to recover the property for the benefit of the future generations of Mandauehanons,” Quisumbing told reporters after the filing.

“Given the scope and scale of this transaction, we want to show that we will no longer tolerate this sort of corruption in Mandaue City. We want to show that the city officials are united in making sure that we will be able to recover the lot,” he added.

Quisumbing said he was confident that the evidence they have is sufficient to take back the property.

If they will get a favorable ruling, Quisumbing said they will use the lot to build socialized housing units using the P1 billion fund provided by the national government through the National Housing Authority (NHA).

Quisumbing said that the land area can accommodate to up to 8,000  housing units, at 27 square meters each. /elb