IT WOULD be interesting to know how another administration viewed two issues that recently involved the Cebu City Government. Would another city mayor or city administrator, faced with the same crisis, have tackled the problem differently?
Those who run City Hall have different strokes, each set of managers to its own time and approach on an issue. But circumstances are often similar and strands in the fabric of controversy are common. Thus, past experience may provide insight and interest to current situation.
TWO ISSUES. How did mayor Tomas Osmena and city administrator Nigel Paul Villarete, decision makers at the time, handle or would’ve handled these issues:
(a) The Compania Maritima property ruling of the Cebu Regional Trial Court against Cebu City, on which Mayor Michael Rama said last June 8 “it’s not over till it’s over,” after earlier declaring a “gubat patani” on the Cebu Port Authority;
(c) The gag on department heads and office chiefs at City Hall, where an April 25, 2023 order of City Administrator Collin Rosell prohibits heads of offices from making any declaration or responding to “any invitation, session, media appearance”
without prior notice to and direction from the city mayor.
GAG ON DEP’T. HEADS. It’s not yet publicly known if the city administrator has since modified his memorandum order, since it was issued and the heavy criticism against it. Many City Hall watchers assume that the M.O. stands, as is.
It has been quiet after the blasts in social media. But a tight enforcement of the ban may bring out the issue any time. Until then, nobody working at City Hall is expected to complain aloud, much less go to court over it.
How did the Osmena administration handle any gagging? Apparently by not making it publicly appear as a gag or ban.
Villarete agreed that it is “advisable” that no department or office head issue any statement, especially involving policy, which is not in line with, or even contradicts, the mayor’s position. mayor. But there are “department-level” policies, he told me last April 27, that are within the prerogative of the department head. “Curtailing that is curtailing his authority or performance.”
HOW THEY DID IT. To draw the line, Villarete said, it helped that “we (the Osmena administration) had a weekly Monday meeting of department heads” where they discussed all items that involved policy. On any doubtful or sensitive area, the city administrator would ask the mayor first.
In such a case, it wouldn’t be gagging, but collective decision-making, Villarete called it, although critics may still see and call it as one. But here’s the thing, the department heads aren’t stopped from talking with or giving information to media.
Cool, not crude, as one City Hall beat reporter reacted.
MARITIMA COURT WAR ‘NOT OVER.’ The thorn from the City’s claim over Maritima building and premises is still stuck though.
Cebu Regional Trial Court Judge Soliver Peras’s June 5 order, declaring the property as owned by the Republic of the Philippines through the Cebu Port Authority, will stand until a superior court will strike down the permanent injunction against the City.
The City is expected to appeal the ruling, given Mayor Mike Rama’s declaration of “It isn’t over.” Megawide’s response was less trite or dramatic: The order is not yet final and executory, obviously keeping hope despite the permanence that changed the preliminary injunction the court issued in December 2022.
How did then mayor Osmena and his then city administrator Villarete look at the Maritima ownership question? How would they have approached the Carbon Market joint venture agreement?
IF IT WERE TOMAS AND PAUL. Another Osmena administration wouldn’t have approved the Megawide JVA offer since the Osmenas -- former city councilor Margot Osmena, the aspirant for mayor in 2022 and her husband Tomas, who was expected to be at her side, coaching -- fought against the project during the campaign and promised to seek its rescission if they’d win.
If ever they’d approve it, they wouldn’t include the Maritima property without the consent of the Cebu Port Authority.
The Osmena administration, it would seem, acknowledged or didn’t bother to question the ownership of the Maritima property, maybe because at the time they had no plan involving the land.
BASIC LAW IN DISPUTE. A July 4, 2013 story in SunStar reported the reasons DENR (Department of Enivornment & Natural Resources)-7, through its Cenro (Community Environment and Natural Resources Office), rejected on April 20, 1997 Compania Maritima application for a reclaimed land lease for the property.
Those are (1) The area was declared within the Port of Cebu, per Section 30, Article IX of Presidential Decree #857, which reorganized port operations and functions and revised the decree creating the Cebu Port Authority. (2) The area was not occupied or managed.
A DENR official said then that the courts could settle the dispute, not the tax declaration of Cebu City over the property. The RTC has just ruled on that but the City could still appeal the ruling to higher courts.
CEBU CITY’S ARGUMENTS. The RTC ruling said the Maritima premises were part of the port of Cebu. Villarete remembered that the port area, then called “Aduana,” was at the back of City Hall. where George & Peter Lines boats docks.
“That area beyond City Hall/PNB after crossing the road was already considered part of the “pantalan.” Villarete told me last January 22. “CPA had three berths there, now what we consider ‘pantalan’ is from Pier One to Pier Four. Before, the ‘pantalan’ reached the back of City Hall. He wished there were an old map, before 1990. Did the RTC see one before deciding on the Cebu City-CPA case? Maybe no map was ever shown during the litigation.
Mayor Rama’s arguments -- aside from the land being tax-declared in the name of the City -- were (a) the property had long been abandoned as the site of any port activity, and (b) he, as then vice mayor and chairman of the city’s historical and cultural affairs commission, had been cleaning up the property.
The mayor said the City developed the property and CPA asserted claim only after the development and the Local Government Code “devolved” the property to the local government.
JURISDICTION, NOT OWNERSHIP. Villarete had worked with Neda (National Economic Development Authority), 1989-1994, as chief of infrastructure; with Regional Development Council, 1995-1998, as member from the private sector; and with the City Government, 2001-2010, as city administrator, SRP project manager and city planning and development officer.
That should be enough credentials for him to say about the “governing factor” in the City-CPA dispute. Villarete told me last February 17 that ownership is not but JURISDICTION (capitalized by him) is. A week before that, Mayor Mike said CPA didn’t have jurisdiction over the area because it is Quezon Boulevard (Blvd), a public road. Villarete said then, “We forget that Quezon Blvd. was, and is, the main road of the Cebu Port. Quezon Blvd. traverses the entire length of the port from end to end.”
Villarete pointed to a cut at the road where “the City South Coastal Road (CSCR) underpass passes underneath... precisely, because when the CSCR was being constructed, it cut Quezon Blvd. in that area. “But prior to CSCR it was one long Quezon Blvd. -- from the Mandaue end of the Cebu Port to the Compania Maritima end of the port.” Adding: “The entire area below Quezon Blvd. was under the jurisdiction of the Port of Cebu.”
On the Local Government Code “devolving” the land to the LGU, Villarete said, “no way”: Does Lapu-Lapu City now own all lands of the MCIAA or the airport authority? Does Cebu City own all lands of the CPA?
AREA DELINEATED UNDER THE LAW. Under PD #857, which created the Cebu Port Authority, they instituted what is called “port area delineation,” defining administrative ownership of the port area. Villarete said he remembers that the Philippine Port Authority and Cebu Port Authority secured the endorsement of the Regional Development Council to “perfect” the delineation.
“The Port includes PMO-5, the area where Maritima is located and the former Berths 31-33 of the port were,” Villarete said.
CPA has jurisdiction over the Maritima property, he said, “because it was part of the Port of Cebu in the past and it was used as port in the past.” Unless the law and issuances ordering the port delineation are revoked, reversed, or changed, that area is still part of the Port of Cebu, he said.
WHAT’S AHEAD FOR THE CITY. Cebu City may push, as the mayor has indicated, its appeal to the higher court. At the same time, it may pursue other measures or avenues, such as lobbying with the National Government, through the president’s office, and Congress for the change of “jurisdiction” over Maritima property.
City officials can try to persuade national policy-makers that the Maritima Ruins and its land will be more beneficial to the City Government than to PPA. That it has no longer been used by PPA, although it claims it has projects lined up for the property. The City can also pitch to the National Government its Carbon modernization venture and the waterfront heritage-business project.
Mayor Rama might wage his “gubat patani” against CPA elsewhere, beyond the courts. But meantime, the court has ordered the City, keep off the property.