MPLA accuses DLNR of land-grabbing

The Marianas Public Lands Authority’s board of directors accused Land Registration and Survey director Jesus DeLeon Guerrero Takai of conducting arbitrary land surveys that benefited private claimants to public land.

Such an arbitrary action, which was conducted without any formal hearing, effectively grabbed certain public land that the MPLA has been leasing out to tenants, according to a lawsuit filed by the MPLA board at the Superior Court Friday.

The MPLA board’s attorneys, Matthew Gregory and Ramon K. Quichocho, sued the Department of Lands and Natural Resources, the agency that administers the Division of Land Registration and Survey, and the heirs of Rita Rogolifoi, who benefited from the land titling. It sued DeLeon Guerrero Takai as DLRS director.

In the complaint, the MPLA board said that a certificate of title in favor of Rogolifoi was issued on Dec. 16, 2004 and described the aggregate area of three lots as 33,927-sqm. On Jan. 14, 2005, the title was amended to increase the aggregate size to 44,943-sqm, according to the complaint.

“Records at the DLRS fail to show that a formal hearing was conducted to legally determine that the lands surveyed were actually the true locations and boundaries of the three lots,” the complaint said. “The lands surveyed and conveyed to the Rogolifoi were public lands based on the Confirmation Deed and its correlated document.”

The MPLA board noted that the government’s Land Registration Team adjudicated three lots to the Rogolifoi heirs, represented by Dolores Saralu, on Oct. 13, 1953. It noted the lots to be pre-war properties in As Mahetog, with an aggregate area of approximately 4.2 hectares, subject to survey.

The government, however, denied possession of portions of the lots lying within the so-called U.S. Retention area, which led to land exchange deals to compensate the loss. In 1954 and 1955, two land exchange transactions happened that took away the three lots from the Rogolifoi heirs. In 1959, one of the land exchange transactions got vacated and returned approximately 3.1 hectares of land to the heirs.

“For fifty-two years, since the issuance of the title determination in 1953, no survey was ever conducted of the three lots to determine their locations and boundaries. The title determination merely provided a general description of their locations and boundaries, without a specific metes and bounds description,” the MPLA board said.

The DLRS conducted a survey for the three lots in November 2003. “The survey was conducted without any reference or established coordinate to determine the point of beginning for any of the three lots,” the board said. “Because of this, the survey of the three lots was uncertain. None of the three lots has any specific metes and bounds description.”

On March 26, 2004, a map of the three lots was completed and registered at the Commonwealth Recorder’s Office, which was later revised and re-registered on Dec. 14, 2004, according to the MPLA board. A certificate of title was issued two days later.

“The increase of aggregate size of the lots on Jan. 14, 2005 has nullified [the remaining land exchange deal] and had returned Rogolifois’ lands back to them as well as giving title to lands not owned by defendant Rogolifoi,” the MPLA board said.

“Throughout the process, from the time the survey was conducted to the time the certificate of title was issued, neither MPLA nor any of its predecessors was ever notified or provided notice that the DLRS was going to conduct a survey of a certain public land to give it away to a third party,” it added.

The MPLA board wants a judicial declaration setting aside the title issued in favor of the heirs and protecting portions of the land that it claims to have jurisdiction as custodian of public lands. It also asked the court for an injunction order barring the defendants to demand rent or harass the MPLA’s tenants in the disputed land.