DOE asks SC to reconsider oil depot transfer

The Department of Energy (DOE) has appealed to the Supreme Court to reconsider its March 7 decision to compel the city government of Manila to remove the oil depot in Pandacan immediately.

In a 29-page motion for intervention, the DOE stressed that Manila City Ordinance 8119, which was passed on June 16, 2006, allowed the oil depot in Pandacan to continue operating and gave the three oil companies using the depot – Petron, Shell and Caltex (now Chevron) – a grace period of seven years to relocate to another site.

According to the DOE, Ordinance 8119 was passed into law while the case was pending before the SC, and none of the parties had informed the high court of its existence.

The SC ordered the immediate pull out of the oil terminals in Pandacan by virtue of Ordinance 8027, which took effect in December 2001. The SC also cited a possible terrorist threat to the depot in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attack in the US.

The SC added that the city government of Manila should implement Ordinance 8027 "as long as it has not been repealed by the Manila City Council or annulled by the courts."

The DOE said Ordinance 8119 effectively repealed Ordinance 8027 insofar as the zoning classification of the Pandacan area is concerned.

Ordinance 8027 gave oil companies six months to cease its operations and relocate, while Ordinance 8119 gave them seven years to phase out their operations.

"Since the two ordinances are patently in conflict with each other on the zoning classification of the Pandacan oil depot as well as the period within which the relocation of the businesses concerned should be made, Ordinance 8119 – being a later local legislation – is deemed to have impliedly repealed Ordinance 8027," the DOE said.