Manila mayor bucks DENR

The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) and the Manila City government are headed for a showdown as the latter decided to go ahead with the construction of a controversial commuter center despite DENR’s cease-and-desist order.

Manila City Mayor Lito Atienza announced the decision in an interview last Thursday, a move that could trigger legal complications as to whose orders should take precedence. Atienza said it is the DENR that should go to court to question his order to go ahead with the construction.

"I told Sonny (DENR Sec. Heherson Alvarez) that we will continue with the construction. Now, we are saying that we are right, and they are saying they are right, then to settle this they should go to court," said Atienza.

The Manila City government had vehemently objected to the DENR’s cease-and-desist order against the Park and Ride project saying this is being built on a dead-end road that has served as the parking lot of the idle Metropolitan Theater. Conservationists have been questioning the construction which will stand next to the equally controversial City College of Manila (CCM) project on the adjacent historical Mehan Gardens.

"The Park and Ride project is different. It is not part of Mehan Gardens. It is a street, deserted and asphalted," Atienza told a handful of reporters.

The city government earlier agreed to halt construction of the CCM in deference to negotiations to acquire the old Ateneo site in Intramuros as an alternative site for the school.

Atienza said the site of the Park and Ride project is actually known as Basa street, before the Lawton fly-over cut it off from Liwasang Bonifacio. It was later reportedly converted into a parking space for the Metropolitan Theater.

"I am not taking an antagonistic posture here. If they (DENR) have any question then they should go to court," Atienza said. – Jose Aravilla