By Benjamin B. Pulta
09/02/2009 [ tribune.net.ph ]
Residents of the country’s largest suburb is asking the Supreme Court (SC) to sanction a Las Piñas judge handling the heated controversy over the water supply contract in BF Homes in Parañaque-Las Piñas.
The 12,000-strong United BF Homeowners’ Association Inc. (UBFHAI) filed administrative complaint before the SC against the judge who issued an injunction order which stopped the Manila Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS) and Maynilad Water Services Corp. (Maynilad) from providing the homeowners with potable water.
In a 15-page complaint addressed to Chief Justice Reynato Puno, the group accused Las Pinas Regional Trial Court Branch 274 Judge Raul Bautista Villanueva of gross ignorance of the law, grave abuse of discretion and utterly oppressive conduct.
"The Honorable Supreme Court has time and again cautioned judges not to indiscriminately issue injunctions when the claimed irreparable injury of a party is compensable, or when its issuance will cause injury that will far outweigh the benefit it will serve to the party supposed to be protected," the UBFHAI said.
Records show Villanueva issued a preliminary injunction which stopped the MWSS from laying the underground water pipes inside the subdivision on the motion of developer BF Homes Inc. (BFHI) and its water service firm, the Philippine Waterworks and Construction Corp. (PWCC).
The judge also restrained and extended the effect of the injunction to Maynilad and other private contractors.
UBFHAI claimed MWSS was ordered by President Arroyo through Executive Order 688, dated Feb. 22, 2007, to provide water services to BF Homes. The EO was anchored on Presidential Decree 1345 empowering MWSS to take over the centralized water supply system within its jurisdiction.
"In issuing the preliminary injunction against MWSS, Maynilad Water Services, and all agents acting on their behalf, Villanueva effectively extended for an indefinite period of time the suffering of the thousands of residents of BF Homes who have been waterless for decades," the group said.
"He committed extreme injustice to the residents because he favored a non-existent private interest over public interest," it added.
But Villanueva said what he did was only just to protect the interest of the subdivision developer because allowing the MWSS, Maynilad and other private contractors to proceed would be tantamount to taking a private property without just compensation.
He stressed "taking without just compensation" should not only be construed in the physical sense but includes also the taking of the business from BFHI and PWCC to provide water service to BF Homes community.
The UBFHAI argued that BFHI and PWCC no longer have any water service business since 2003 and because of the latter’s inability and failure to provide water to homeowners, the National Water Resources Board (NWRB) did not renew its certificate of public convenience to provide water.
The UBFHAI said the NWRB denied the PWCC’s motion for reconsideration, prompting the BFHI and PWCC to elevate the matter to the regional trial court.
UBFHAI stressed the rationale of the prohibition against the whimsical issuances of TROs and injuctions by judges is to avoid disruption of essential government projects in areas of activity critical to the country’s economic development efforts which, under the Constitution, must be implemented expeditiously and efficiently.
Also the prohibition was bolstered by the issuance of Administrative Circular 11-200 banning the issuance of temporary restraining orders or writs of preliminary prohibitory or mandatory injunctions in cases involving government infrastructure projects.
"The action of the honorable judge is therefore tantamount to tolerating and rewarding the utter misrepresentation and dereliction of duty committed by BFHI while penalizing the residents and homeowners of BF Homnes in continously depriving them of much needed potable water, a basic human right," the group said.
UBFHAI said Villanueva exercised grave abuse of discretion in granting the petition for preliminary injuction filed by the petitioners in the case as it failed to impartially weigh the respective interests of both parties.
"Not only did the injunctive order entirely ignore the presumption of constitutionality of all laws but it derogated the well-entrenched principles of salus populi est supreme lex (the welfare of individual yields to that of the community) which calls for the subordination of individual interests to the beneft of the greater number," the group said.
"Everyone has the right to clean and accessible water, adequate for the health and well-being of the individual and family, and no one should be deprived of such access of quality water in expense of one’s personal economic advancement," it added.
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