Hi, I don't know where to post so I will post in this section. Sorry if this is the wrong place, but please help and read on.
I am very concerned at the recent events happening in a certain province and I am very much concerned with the oppressed parties, one of them are closely related to one of my acquaintances.
Background:
Basically, there is a land dispute, the current occupants have been living on the government land for more than 20 yrs (the government agency which I dont remember now, already stated that the land in question is a government property), and the oppressor obtained a land title just around 4 yrs back and is now doing all means to get the whole village/baranggay evicted. The land title is already fishy because this is a government land, and there are currently farmers occupying the land in question when the title was applied for, but during court trials the oppressor could only produce photocopies of the alleged land title. What I know is, a civillian should not be able to get a land title for a land owned by the government specially if that land is occupied by a whole baranggay/village.
Expansion:
Due to apparent desperation of the oppressor(could not get the land cleared of current occupants), he filed a criminal case against a few major figures of the baranggay, alleged cases are coercion, grave threats, assault and damage to property (which the whole baranggay attests never happened, the oppressor burnt his own property, took pictures and claimed he was attacked by the villagers, and even claimed presence of long rifles carried by the alleged perpetrators, all are false/fabricated evidences and hearsays by the oppressor, which I will also attest to, these are poor people who could not even afford short firearms, this is crazy). So the case was filed, and the court (provincial) seems to favor the oppressor.
Questions:
1) They say the people who were targetted by the libelous accusations will be arrested based on the case filed by the oppressor, is this legal and within proper procedure? (the baranggay people are concerned that this information is being used to harrass the baranggay people, related to the land dispute case)
2) The baranggay people tried to file a libel case against the oppressor but the court says it will not allow it because the court claims the people should have filed the libel case immediately when the oppresor filed the criminal cases. Is this a correct reasoning of the provincial court? (The people are thinking the court officials up to the municipal levels were paid for by the oppressor, however that is still only an accusation)
Please help. these people are poor and could not easily fight the oppressor, we feel that the oppressor is using the law and his money to harrass the people because he could not win the case on the land dispute case (still running to this date, he lost the last trial hearing).
Any information, answers, and help will be greatly appreciated by the people of that baranggay. Please send some ideas and answers to
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, and currently, I think the people of the baranggay are looking for a lawyer to represent them.
