Malilong: Moot and academic?

LAST week, the Cebu City Council passed a resolution upholding the validity of the compromise agreement that Mayor Tomas Osmeña and Romulo Torres signed in the SRP case. It will be remembered that Torres sued the City Council to stop the administration of then mayor Michael Rama from using the proceeds of the P16-billion sale of a portion of the South Road Properties to three of the country’s biggest conglomerates.

The voting went strictly along partisan lines with Osmeña’s allies supporting the measure and incoming Mayor Edgardo Labella’s Barug teammates voting against it.

She has not even seen a copy of the agreement, opposition Councilor Jocelyn Pesquerra moaned. That’s strange because as representatives of the people, the councilors are expected to make decisions on policy matters based on informed consent. Why wasn’t a copy of the compromise agreement attached to the proposed resolution?

But let us assume that the compromise agreement was the same document that the city attorney’s office announced late last year they were preparing and about which Osmeña and Torres sought permission to submit for approval by the Court of Appeals to whom Torres elevated his complaint after it was dismissed by the trial court.

Note, however, that the appellate court has already rejected the notion of an Osmeña-Torres agreement as “contrary to law and public policy.” Even more significantly, the CA threw out Torres’ appeal on April 30 this year because he lacked legal standing to file the case.

In effect and as correctly pointed out by Councilors Joey Daluz and Raymund Garcia, the City Council in passing the resolution voted to do something that has become moot and academic.

Sisinio Andales, who, like Garcia and Daluz, is also a lawyer and who authored the resolution, must have considered the fact that the CA decision is not yet final and, therefore, the parties can still do something such as to terminate it through a compromise agreement. But in the light of the two outright setbacks that the court dealt Torres, how realistic is that line of thinking?

The suspicion is that the purpose of these legal maneuvers is to prevent the incoming administration of Edgar Labella from touching the P16B plus paid by the consortium of SM and Ayala and by Filinvest. Osmeña’s allies succeeded in handcuffing Rama off the treasure trove. Will they have the same success with Labella?

And by extension, will they still be able to prevent the buyers from developing the properties that they purchased? That is not likely to happen. In fact, the developers could have already done that long ago because the Court did not issue any restraining order or injunction but they hesitated probably because Rama was on the third year of his term on or about the time that they purchased the SRP lots and they faced a hostile mayor in Osmeña, who beat Rama.

This time, they have a friendly mayor in Labella. They also know that he enjoys the support of President Duterte so they can trust in Malacañang’s intervention when push comes to shove.

We’ll finally be able to see that huge arena soon?

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