Tuesday, July 07, 2009 [ manilatimes.net ]
GOVERNMENT counsels have asked the Supreme Court to junk the petition seeking to stop the implementation of a proposed C-5 road extension project that will link the North Luzon Expressway (NLEX) and South Luzon Expressway (SLEX).
During Monday’s oral argument, Government Corporate Counsel Alberto Agra, representing the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS), argued before the Court that the petition, filed by Old Balara Barangay Capt. Beda Torrecampo, was “premature” as there was no official agreement yet between the MWSS and the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH).
“The MWSS has not yet been given copy of the design of the project so there is no project to speak of,” Agra told members of the High Court’s First Division, adding that MWSS has yet to conduct a survey on the exact location and condition of the affected area where the supposed aqueducts or main water pipes are located.
Torrecampo filed the petition on Wednesday last week. He asked the Court for the issuance of temporary restraining order or writ of preliminary injunction on the project on the ground that it would affect the water supply of some eight million residents of Metro Manila and nearby provinces.
Representing the DPWH to the hearing, Assistant Solicitor General Eric Remigio Panga agreed and supported the argument of the government corporate counsel, saying that “the DPWH has yet to submit the final plan to MWSS.”
Said plan, Panga pointed out, could either be approved or disapproved by the MWSS board.
In the same hearing, Associate Justice Corona also raised the issue of jurisdiction of the High Court on the petition, saying that the legal provision for the filing of the petition at the High Court has exemptions.
Section 3 of R.A. 8975, Corona explained, provides that lower courts may have jurisdiction on petitions against DPWH project “when the matter is of extreme urgency involving a constitutional issue.”
Counsel for Torrecampo, lawyer Alfredo Villamor, countered that he had a different interpretation of the said provision of R.A. 8975. He was ordered by the Court to explain his point in a manifestation to be submitted within 10 days.
During questioning, Corona cited a similar project in Paris, France, that did not raise any problem in structural condition.
Villamor reasoned out that he had been to Paris and was told that the waterways and aqueducts were built with a plan to put up buildings above it.
Torrecampo, in his 18-page petition, said “[it] would be highly dangerous to construct a road over and above the aqueducts owing to the fact that the constant indiscriminate usage of the proposed road project with heavy trucks passing over it every now and then might cause damage to said aqueducts and disrupt water supply to all Metro Manila residents.”
--WILLIAM B. DEPASUPIL
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