Seares: Private person, not City, sued. What if Tomas had directly assailed lots sale?

CEBU City’s incoming mayor Edgardo Labella is facing a lot of problems, not excluding rumored intramurals in his party Barug, alleged meddling in governance by contributors to his victory, and real opposition in the City Council.

But, heavens, he has oodles of government spending money for his three-year term. The P8.35 billion cash from the sale of SRP lots to a consortium is not paltry; it can fund some of the programs that he promised in the campaign. He will need though the assent of the BOPK-dominated City Council.

The irony

The epic irony about the money is that it was available, cash in bank, when Mayor Tomas Osmeña assumed office in 2016. Though he then faced opposition by a Barug-controlled City Council, he made it clear he wouldn’t spend any of it. He managed to keep the assets frozen during his entire term because he wanted to revoke the sale of the SRP lots that earned it. He must have thought, rightly or not, that it would bolster his case to rescind the sale by keeping its proceeds intact.

Barely two days after he won the elections three years ago, Osmeña said he would’ve the contracts revoked. Tomas wanted the deal struck down. His reason: It was contracted by then mayor Mike Rama without authority from the City Council and on many other grounds, which to him spelled fraud and deceit by Mike and the buyers.

Surrogate attack

But here was a possible mistake, which the Court of Appeals (CA) ruling raised in bold relief: The City and its officials did not directly assail the contract.

Tomas should have prodded the City Council to authorize the mayor and the City to sue for the sale’s rescission, annulment, declaration of nullity, or whichever mode of attack the lawyers would pick. One time, blocked by a hostile legislature, the mayor even toyed with the idea of citizens initiative to legislate.

But even when balance of power in the City Council shifted to BOPK, Tomas was content with the lawsuit filed with Regional Trial Court (RTC) by a taxpayer named Romulo Torres of Basak, San Nicolas. The Torres petition mainly sought to stop Rama from spending proceeds of the SRP lots sale. It wasn’t a direct attack on the validity of the consortium’s deal. And when Tomas wanted to intervene in the case, the court barred him.

No controversy

The April 30 CA decision, affirming an RTC ruling, rejected Torres’s claim of “an actual case or controversy” over his imagined fear that spending the money would affect basic services. Things might have turned out differently had the mayor and the City frontally attacked in court the sale of the lots. The lawsuit could’ve proved the alleged contract defects that Tomas has publicized since the adverse ruling came out.

The CA noted that City Council Ordinance 2037 of 2012 sought to protect SRP and its stakeholders from “unlawful and unauthorized transactions” by requiring special approval from the City Council and public bidding for the City to sell or otherwise dispose of SRP land. City Council Resolution 130418 of 2014 authorized then-mayor Mike Rama to sell the 42.5 hectares of SRP land to Filinvest, Ayala Land and SM Prime Holdings, subject to public bidding. And conditions were followed under both ordinance and resolution.

Without squabbling

The controversy may still go to the Supreme Court (SC), if taxpayer Torres’ civic-spiritedness and energy endure. But Tomas’ offer to intervene was rejected by the CA and the SC might see it the same way. Later attempts by the City Council to authorize the mayor’s compromise with Torres and declare the sale invalid, after the CA decision, may be ineffectual if not ludicrous.

Aside from the irony in the mayor’s situation is the pity of it: the issues raised by Tomas, actively circulated only after the CA ruling, were not fully resolved in the litigation–and may never be.

Labella might yet find the means to make the City Council agree with him that it would be for public interest to manage SRP without the bitter squabbling that has stunted its growth for many years now.

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