By Ferdinand Fabella
[ manilastandardtoday.com ] March 7-8, 2009
A private contractor has asked the court to stop Muntinlupa City officials from dumping its approved contract to build a P280-million pedestrian walkway at the Alabang viaduct.
In a petition filed on Wednesday, N.C. Tavu and Associates Corp. sought before the Muntinlupa Regional Trial Court a writ of preliminary injunction over a build-operate-transfer contract signed on Dec. 5, 2006.
“The BOT agreement is a valid, existing and perfected contract between petitioner and the city of Muntinlupa, which petitioner has a right to demand to be implemented, and which the respondents have the duty to implement,” said N.C. Tavu president architect Neil Tavu.
He said officials, led by Mayor Aldrin San Pedro, acted with grave abuse of discretion when they passed in November 2007 a city council resolution, junking the Muntinlupa skyway contract that was awarded by former Mayor Jaime Fresnedi.
Co-defendants in Civil Case 09-328 are City Administrator Roberto Bunyi and members of the city council.
Public information officer Omar Acosta told Standard Today that San Pedro welcomed the suit.
“We should let the court decide,” he said.
Tavu’s firm proposed the 11-m x 349-m elevated, covered, and multi-access pedestrian walkway with 10 stairways, 10 escalators, and an elevator.
He said the Bids and Awards Committee endorsed the proposal to Fresnedi on Dec. 23, 2005; city hall and N.C. Tavu signed a 24-year BOT contract Dec. 5 a year later.
But after winning as mayor in the 2007 elections, San Pedro asked the city council to scrap the BOT deal, dealing instead with another contractor ostensibly to erect pedestrian overpasses at the same project site.
San Pedro claimed that N.C. Tavu was financially incapable, being classified only as “Contractor B” for undertakings worth around P20 million.
The council passed Resolution 07-055 on Dec. 7, 2007 abandoning the skyway project with N.C. Tavu.
For his part, Tavu said they repeatedly asked for the issuance of the Notice of Effectivity to start the project to no avail.
On Feb. 25, city government workers tore down the temporary warehouse at the project site where the company’s construction materials were stored, said Tavu.
He was perplexed because San Pedro—then Fresnedi’s vice mayor and presiding council officer—himself signed Resolution 06-270 passed on July 27, 2006, approving the recommendation to give the project to N.C. Tavu.
“Just because the BOT agreement was signed by the former mayor [Fresnedi] who is a political nemesis does not give respondent city mayor the unbridled authority to rescind the contract or not give it full force,” Tavu said.
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