Banaue and Baguio LGUs overstep

LETTERS FROM THE AGNO

March Fianza

In Banaue, Ifugao, the whole bunch of elected municipal officials along with representatives of the Development Bank of the Philippines were recently the respondents in a civil case filed by a group of residents and taxpayers in the municipality.

The petition was filed on July 14, 2015 before the Second Judicial Region of the Regional Trial Court, Branch 34 under Judge Esther Piscoso Flor in Banaue, Ifugao.

The case stemmed from Municipal Ordinance 16 that was issued on September 11, 2014, authorizing the municipal government to secure a P55-million loan from the Development Bank of the Philippines for the construction and development of a medium rise parking building.

The petitioners who are seeking a temporary restraining order against the project include Poblacion Punong Barangay Fernando Bahatan, lawyer Kendall Pung-aoImmoliap, Prosecutor Zenaida Munar-Niwane, former mayor Lino Madchiw, and Dr. Grasiebel Rufino, and lawyer Placido Wachayna as counsel.

The respondents are Mayor Jerry U. Dalipog, SB members Vice Mayor Joel B. Bunallon, all the municipal councilors, Jonas Wangiwang of Wangjo Construction, and DBP Branch Manager Loreto Marites B. Lilagan.

The proposed parking building was opposed by a group of petitioners who cited several reasons among which were:

1) No public consultations were held. On July 3, 2015 selected persons joined an informal meeting for an information dissemination where mayor declared that the gathering was not a public hearing and he will issue a notice to proceed on July 6, although excavation has already started in April.

2) Mayor Dalipog already entered into a loan agreement with the DBP for a P55-million loan payable in 15 years on December 10, 2014, even before Municipal Ordinance 16 has yet to be reviewed and subsequently approved by the Sanggunian Panlalawigan of Ifugao on January 27, 2015.

 3) All government units are required to request an opinion from the Monetary Board of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas for projects involving loans as mandated by the New Central Bank Act (Sec. 123, RA 7653). The loan was released without the mandatory opinion.

4) The Supreme Court has already issued decisions in the past and limits the use of the Internal Revenue Allotment of LGUs as collateral only up to the expiration of the term of the officials who approved the same in order not to deprive incoming and future officials of the IRA that was already appropriated for the payment of the loan.

5) SC has also decided cases that conversion of public plazas into commercial centers is beyond the municipality’s jurisdiction as public plazas are for public use and part of the public domain, and cannot be disposed or leased to private persons by the municipality.

Petitioners said the project will be constructed right at the center of Barangay Poblacion which is the only open space in the barangay, and to allow the building thereon will “worsen the existing problem of lack of space,” PB Bahatan said.

Earlier, the petitioners proposed that the project be transferred somewhere at the back of the gym but Mayor Dalipog said the space is not feasible.

A 72-hour TRO was granted by the court, however, a 20-day extension was denied. A Motion for Reconsideration filed by the petitioners has yet to be heard considering that Judge Flor is on leave.

***

Back home in Baguio, another LGU boo-boo re-emerges as members of the Tadiangan-Nangalisan Hydro Ancestral Landowners Association (TNHALA) of Tuba through their president Roger D. Sinot wrote Vice Mayor Ed Bilog and Councilor Joel Alangsab.

The TNHALA letter requested for a meeting with the city council for purposes of discussing unsettled issues relative to an unexecuted compromise agreement between them.

It appears that four years after the compromise agreement was approved by Regional Trial Court, Branch 3 on April 19, 2011; five years since it was signed by Mayor Domogan on October 27, 2010; and eight long years since the city should have started paying its rent to the TNHALA, not a single centavo has yet to be paid.

This, as quite a number of family members of the TNHALA have passed on due to old age or after getting sick, hopelessly waiting for benefits that would never come after a long wait.

In an earlier letter to Mayor Domogan, TNHALA president Sinot said, members of the association and their families are still waiting and hoping to receive the benefits and privileges stipulated in the compromise agreement that are long overdue.

The compromise agreement was the result of negotiations and court proceedings between the city that claims ownership of the Asin Hydro Electric Plant facilities, and the TNHALA members whose lands in Tadiangan and Nangalisan in Tuba have been traversed by such facilities.

The city, for the longest time, has benefited from the operations of the Asin hydro plants, while the owners of the lands traversed by the facility and pipelines have not been getting anything in return for the exploitation since the electric plant was built in the 1930s.

The solution to their decades-problem is for the city to obey the provisions of the compromise agreement that it signed and pay up. Otherwise, continue to bully Tuba, particularly, the landowners.

***

While a majority of the lawmakers, cabinet men and those who were physically present to listen to the last SONA of President Noynoy Aquino at the Batasan were clapping and giving standing ovations; thousands or hundreds of thousands were scoffing at his proud statements about what the nation has turned into during his watch.

A rosy picture is, time and again, the painting that is presented in most SONAs. Good statistics as seen by speech writers and planners in Malacanang does not translate to good life in the countryside. Whether economy has improved or not on the national level, that does not connect to LGUs that continue to burden their citizens.

In the process of legislating, they overstep their powers and miss out on the most important ingredient of their actions – public consultations. This can be carried out through any form acceptable and agreed on by all concerned. What is important is that sensitive legislative actions cannot be presumed as acceptable in a close-knit community whose members are closely related by blood and culture.