RAILROADED RESOLUTION NOT VALID

THE Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) has spoken.

Dagupan City Mayor Benjamin S. Lim does not have blanket authority to sell the MC Adore property and the 10-hectare lot of the city in Barangay Talibaew, Calasiao, both owned by Dagupan, on the basis of a resolution of the Sangguniang Panlungsod (SP) approved by nine councilors during a controversial special session on April 20.

In an eight-page legal opinion issued by Jesus B. Doque IV, Director III, dated June 5, 2012, the DILG said the council resolution does not give the mayor the power “to conclude, execute and sign in behalf of the City of Dagupan the Deed of Sale or any other document involving the aforesaid properties”.

Doque wrote that if Lim wishes to exercise these acts, he is required to first secure anew-prior authorization from the SP.

Resolution No. 6738-2012 authorized Lim to initiate the sale of the MC Adore property and a piece of land in Talibaew, Calasiao, the proceeds of which are supposedly to be earmarked for priority development programs and projects of the Dagupan City government.

Lim earlier announced the creation of the Appraisal Committee to be headed by City Administrator Vlad Mata, signalling the start of the negotiation and sale process.

The legal opinion was issued in response to a letter query dated May 26, 2012 by Vice Mayor Belen Fernandez, chair of the SP, addressed to Interior and Local Government Secretary Jesse Robredo.

Fernandez was in the United States on an official trip when the special session was hastily called by Lim and held on April 20, a Friday.

When the vice mayor returned to preside over the April 23 regular session, there was no quorum with only four councilors present.

LEGAL INFIRMITY

At the same time, Doque said that while ordinances and resolutions passed by local sanggunians enjoy the presumption of regularity and are thus considered valid, unless declared otherwise by the courts of justice, he, however, expressed the view that Resolution No. 6738-2012 suffers from legal infirmity, as it did not go through a second reading.

This lapse, Doque said, can be cited by concerned parties in going to court for the filing of appropriate civil charges to declare the resolution invalid.

“Hence, be it an ordinary legislative measure or legislative measure certified as urgent by the local chief executive, the same must undergo the first and second readings,” legal opinion said.

The DILG also noted violation of Section 52 (d) of the Local Government Code of 1991 when no other notice of the special session was personally and individually given to the SP members at their usual residences “though if at all we shall consider the letter of Mayor Lim to the Sangguniang Panlungsod dated 18 April 2012 as the written notice itself, though it stated the date, time and purpose of the special session.”

At the same time, Doque said that whether the resolution comes within the purview of “public interest” under Section 53 (b) of the Local Government Code or an urgent measure” as defined under Section 35, Rule VI of the IRP of the SP, “we are of the view that this is already evidentiary in nature and should be properly presented, proved and resolved before the proper forum”.

In her letter to Robredo, Fernandez cited that the resolution did not go through second reading as required by Section 35, Rule VII of the Sanggunian Rules of Dagupan and that Lim failed to indicate a specific public interest that demanded the holding of a special session.

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