If the reports are true, the Cebu City Government has lost another battle to the heirs of Vicente Rallos in a war that has dragged on for decades and which could potentially cost them nearly half a billion pesos. Can they get out of this hole as they had done many times in the past?
Let me first explain the opening line. The papers said that the Supreme Court decision dismissing City Hall’s appeal in the Rallos case was made on February 13, 2023. I visited the Supreme Court’s website yesterday but did not find City vs. Rallos in the list of cases decided on February 13. I’m not saying that the reported decision is a false alarm. Maybe, I am just a very bad researcher.
Anyway, assuming that there is indeed an adverse decision by the Supreme Court, can the City again find a way to extend the struggle or have they reached the end of the line? Let’s look into the case’s history.
On January 14, 2000 the Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 9, after hearing, rendered a decision condemning the City to pay to the Rallos heirs just compensation for the two parcels of land that the City used as a road without permission by or payment to the owner. The Court assigned the computation of the just compensation to a commission that it created.
The City filed a motion for reconsideration but it was denied by the Court. More than a year later, the Court fixed the amount due the Rallos heirs, based on the recommendation of the commission, at P34,905,000 plus P50,000 each for attorney’s fees and expenses of litigation and interest at 12 percent per annum. On December 21, 2001, the Court allowed the execution of the judgment even while the appeal was pending.
Both Rallos and the city appealed the decisions, but the Court of Appeals dismissed the City’s appeal because of the failure of their lawyer to file a record on appeal. The City went to the Supreme Court asking for a reversal of the Court of Appeals dismissal. The Supreme Court, however, rejected the City’s petition.
With the City’s appeal effectively rejected, the case went back to the RTC, which, at the urging of the Rallos heirs, granted the execution of the judgment. The City moved for reconsideration but was again denied by the Court.
On September 23, 2011, the RTC directed the issuance of another writ of execution. The City responded by asking that the writ be quashed. The Court denied the City’s motion. The City filed a motion for reconsideration. The Court rejected it. The City filed a second motion for reconsideration. Again the Court rejected it.
With the successive denials of their motion to stop the execution, the City found their back to the wall. But not for long. On March 26, 2012, the City filed a case with the Court of Appeals to annul the decisions of the RTC on January 14, 2000 and July 24, 2001, producing as basis, a document called convenio that the City alleged was approved by the old Court of First Instance on October 18, 1940. The City claimed that under the convenio, Rallos was bound to donate the two lots to the City.
As in their appeal from the decisions on January 14, 2000 and July 24, 2002, the petition to annul the judgments was fraught with formal defects but this time, instead of dismissing the petition outright, the Court of Appeals gave the City’s lawyers a chance to rectify the defects, which they did.
Less than a month after the filing of the new petition, the CA issued a temporary restraining order for 60 days and eventually a preliminary injunction prohibiting the RTC from proceeding with the execution of its judgments. The City posted a bond of P1 million for the injunction.
The injunction paralyzed the RTC and for 10 years, nothing was heard about the petition until a representative of the Rallos heirs demanded last June 5 the payment of P472 million by the City because they already won the case on February 13, 2023 in the Supreme Court.
The City had good lawyers; otherwise, they would not have been able to tie up the case for more than 20 years since the issuance of the first judgment. But the question is, do they still have an ace up their sleeves? Or should Mayor Michael Rama now write the check to keep the payable from bloating any further?