ON BUILDING PERMIT ISSUE

MetroState Development Corp. is finally fighting back.

The company has filed a case against the city government over the refusal of City Engineer Virginia Rosario to issue a building permit for the P84-million project in the former Magsaysay Park, a prime Dagupan property located just across the city hall.

The complaint, filed before the Regional Trial Court and now under Judge Rolando Mislang of Branch 42, seeks, among other things, to get a writ of mandamus, an order from the court which will compel Rosario to issue the permit.

MetroState, through a contract with former Mayor Benjamin Lim, started the construction of the project even before it could secure the building permit from the city engineer’s office.

Rosario has refused to issue the permit pending receipt of other documents that support the contract, which has been put under question by some members of the Sangguniang Panlungsod (SP).

      Without the building permit, Mayor Alipio Fernandez Jr., who replaced Lim following the May election, has ordered the construction work stopped

The case pits the legal savvy of City Legal Officer George Mejia for the city government, specifically Rosario, against lawyer Francisco Baraan III, counsel for MetroState.

Mejia said he received a copy of the complaint only last Wednesday morning just a day before the set hearing date but expressed confidence in his readiness to defend Rosario and the interests of the city.

Mejia and Baraan only had a brief appearance in court as they were merely required by Judge Mislang to furnish each other their documentary exhibits regarding the case before they go into oral arguments on September 10.

“We were given (by the court) five days to submit our documentary exhibits to the adverse party before the case is submitted for oral argument on September 10 at 2:00 p.m.,” said Mejia just after getting out of the court room.

After the oral arguments, the matter shall be deemed submitted for decision by the court, said Mejia adding it would be considered sub judice for either party to speculate on what may happen next.

The oral arguments will be focused only on the injunction and not on the main case of mandamus, he added.

The ancillary remedy, he added, is the prayer for the issuance of a TRO and writ of preliminary injunction.

Mejia declined to answer when asked what the city would do if the petition for mandamus compelling Rosario to issue the building permit is granted.

“We will cross the bridge when we get there,” he said.

RESOLUTION

Meanwhile, Baraan explained that the central issue of the case is whether the city engineer may require as “condition precedent” to the issuance of a building permit “the production of the Sangguniang Panlungsod resolution”.

The resolution referred to by Baraan was the SP’s authorization for Lim to enter into a contract with MetroState for the tourism park development project under the Build-Operate Transfer (BOT) scheme.

Although adopted in a special session on December 19, 2006, the SP resolution was never released nor transmitted to the mayor’s office.

In the complaint, MetroState accused Rosario of “committing grave abuse of discretion and patent disregard of the law when she refused to issue a building permit which is her ministerial duty to do so even if the plaintiff had already complied with all the legal requirements for the issuance thereof”.

The company alleges that the said lacking document is not a requirement of law for the issuance of a building permit as stipulated in the National Building Code of the Philippines.

“We have an air-tight case and there can be no defense against that,” Baraan told newsmen.—LM

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