Expropriation of Tatalon Estate in Quezon City

August 3, 1959

REPUBLIC ACT NO. 2616

AN ACT PROVIDING FOR THE EXPROPRIATION OF THE TATALON ESTATE IN QUEZON CITY AND FOR THE SALE, AT COST, OF THE LOTS THEREIN TO THEIR PRESENT BONA FIDE OCCUPANTS, AND AUTHORIZING THE APPROPRIATION OF TEN MILLION PESOS FOR THE PURPOSE

SECTION 1.  The expropriation of the Tatalon Estate in Quezon City jointly owned by the J. M. Tuazon and Company, Inc., Gregorio Araneta and Company, Inc., and Florencio Deudor, et al., is hereby authorized. cd

SECTION 2.  Immediately upon the appropriation of funds by the Congress of the Philippines for the payment of just compensation for the said Tatalon Estate, the Solicitor General, or any other proper Government authority shall institute the necessary expropriation proceedings before the Court of First Instance of Quezon City.

SECTION 3.  After the expropriation of the Tatalon Estate as provided in this Act, the lots therein shall be sold at cost to their present bona fide occupants in not more than two hundred forty equal monthly installments with interest of not more than six per centum per annum on the unpaid balance.

SECTION 4.  After the expropriation proceedings mentioned in section two of this Act shall have been initiated and during the pendency of the same, no ejectment proceedings shall be instituted or prosecuted against the present occupant of any lot in said Tatalon Estate, and no ejectment proceedings already commenced shall be continued, and such lot or any portion thereof shall not be sold by the owners of said estate to any person other than the present occupant without the consent of the latter given in a public instrument.

SECTION 5.  Any owner, manager, agent, or other representative of the owners of said estate who shall violate the provisions of the preceding section shall be liable for exemplary damages equivalent to the amount of actual damages suffered by the prejudiced occupant, and for attorney's fees and expenses of litigation.

SECTION 6.  No person acquiring by virtue of this Act any lot in the Tatalon Estate shall sell, transfer, mortgage or otherwise dispose of said lot or any portion thereof within five years from the date full ownership of such lot has been vested in him, without the consent of the Secretary of Agriculture and Natural Resources.

SECTION 7.  The amount of ten million pesos is hereby authorized to be appropriated for the purposes of this Act, without prejudice to any other method of raising the necessary funds required for the expropriation herein provided, which the President of the Philippines may determine, including the use of proceeds of Government bonds and proceeds from the Japanese reparations.

SECTION 8.  This Act shall take effect upon its approval.

Enacted without executive approval, August 3, 1959.

Published in the Official Gazette, Vol. 55, No. 41, p. 8632 on October 12, 1959