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Wednesday, January 12, 2005
Tarzan caught in traffic snarl
By Ram Mercado
I CAUGHT the end part of the cable TV talk show of a brilliant lawyer, Atty. Jun Bautista, featuring three of his colleagues who were on the opposite sides of the traffic rationalization issue in Angeles City.
The transport group is now rejoicing over a first round victory over the City Government with an injunction order in their favor, Tuloy pasada!
The loser is City Mayor Carmelo Lazatin who is being blamed left and right for his failure to implement his erstwhile plan to put order to the city streets which are clogged by hundreds of "out-of-city" public utility vehicles. The mayor's traffic experiment via an enforcement of a standing city ordinance was initially commended by harassed residents and local motorists, refusing entry to off-city units, which greatly reduced congestion in the business district.
The transport group was given up to January 26 or so, to enjoy free access to city streets. This has driven the residents back to their old stressful experience of long gridlock and unusual punishment. The residents are not blaming the judge who issued the order. It is the city chief executive who is getting the flak from irate citizens for hizzoner's failure to make a successful and unimpeded go of a worthy program.
Visibly rejoicing over their initial triumph over the Lazatin experiment was Atty. Francisco "Arlene" Buan and Atty. Joseph Canlas of the petitioners' side while slyly defensive but not aggressively was Atty. Willy Rivera, presumably on the program as a city councilor and as old counselor to Lazatin.
Attorney Canals is a new revelation, a fresh face and an emerging talent in the city. Atty. Buan is a grizzled veteran of the court and partisan politics, too, having run, but lost, in as many attempts for elective office. There was a time when Buan was perceived to have won a congressional fight against Lazatin but lost the counting. I predicted him a winner in the elections of 2004 for city councilor and bombed.
Willy Rivera is one of the exciting legal figures in town, the brightest in the male line-up of Lazatin for the city councilor. In the congressional race against now Rep. Francis Nepomoceno, Rivera beat the favorite son of Angeles in many communities.
I am not sure if the lawyer-councilor will appear as the City's counsel in the court when this issue that may determine Lazatin's future political plan resumes.
The transport group argued that the traffic experiment, which was received with standing ovation for Lazatin, was illegal and unconstitutional.
It appears that the city ordinance and its subsequent amendment from which the mayor based an administrative order to ban off-city limits vehicles from the downtown area was shot full of errors in substance and form. That would be the basis of its "illegality".
Its "unconstitutionality" is framed by the provisions of the Bill of Rights on free movement of citizens and the empowerment of a franchise privilege granted to the vehicle operators. That was what I gathered from Canlas and Buan.
Lazatin's handicap is in fielding a lawyer-politician who may be hampered by his consideration of future alliances and potential support from an organized group (transport operators, drivers). Rivera has wide experience, knowledge, and diligence to prove the City Government right.
If the city councilor will be in Lazatin's legal panel after the TRO's lifting, the opposite side will find it difficult to beat an articulate and able unofficial spokesman of the City Government.
Buan and Canlas, along with the officers of the group agreed that the TRO was only the first base in a ball game.
Expect an interesting and dramatic court fight when lawyers who are also politicians tangle on the points of the law. If Rivera puts aside his public mask as politician and starts fighting like a good battle-tested lawyer that he is, city residents will have a better chance of using the city principal streets under less stressful conditions, thankful to Lazatin for going all out to fight for common welfare and public interest. That's his easy passport to Congress 2007.
The City Government has the strong mantle of the 1991 Local Government Code to win its case. Settled cases of this kind elsewhere are now in jurisprudence. The apparent issue is, does empowerment by franchise (granted by LTFRB) supplant and cancel the power of local government to exercise its sovereign rights?
(January 12, 2005 issue)
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