5625 hectare in sitio Mainit, Catangnan, General Luna. The place, popularly known as “Cloud Nine”, now hosts several resorts.
The sisters said that sometime in 1998, Tax Declaration No. 922, which was registered in the name of their late grandfather, Pablo Alipayo, had been cancelled and replaced with Tax Declaration No. 8486 in the name of Silverio Gonzaga as owner. The cancellation was based on a deed of absolute sale purportedly executed by their grandfather on April 21, 1978.
Plaintiffs said their grandfather could not have made the sale because he died on April 17, 1940.
“Thus, the signature appearing on the name of the late Pablo Alipayo in the said deed of sale was a forgery and the purported deed of sale was absolutely simulated. It was void and inexistent,” the sisters said in their complaint.
In 1998, Gonzaga sold the contested land to Pelagio and Wendelina Alipayo, relatives of the plaintiffs and parents of Welia Archibald.
The said sale was likewise void and inexistent, it being a production of a previous void and inexistent sale, the complaint said.
The questioned sale earned for Gonzaga, a public school teacher in General Luna National High School, a suspension of one month and one day after the Civil Service Commission charged him with falsification of public documents.[]
MindaNews tried to contact Archibald last week but her brother, Peloy Alipayo, said Welia was in Australia.
She also has not responded to queries made through her Facebook account.
The two sisters said their life has become more difficult after they filed the case because “we sold everything we had just to pay the litigation expenses”.
