Court ruling voiding sale of Dagupan City-owned property appealed

DAGUPAN CITY , Philippines   â€“ The city government has filed a motion for reconsideration on a court ruling declaring the resolution that authorized outgoing Mayor Benjamin Lim to negotiate the sale of the former five-star MC Adore Hotel as null and void.

City legal officer Roy Laforteza filed the motion in behalf of Lim and the other respondents on the 12-page decision of Judge Mervin Jovito Samadan of Regional Trial Court Branch 40 last May 20.

City administrator Vladimir Mata, speaking in behalf of Lim who is still confined in a Makati City hospital after he suffered stroke on the eve of the May 13 elections, told The STAR that Lim “is acting on his official capacity as mayor so when we received the ruling we filed a motion for reconsideration within the reglamentary period.”

With Lim bowing out of office as he lost in the recent polls, Mata said it is incumbent upon mayor-elect Belen Fernandez “to represent the interest of the city.”

When told that Fernandez has been consistent with her stand that she opposes the sale of the MC Adore Hotel for being “grossly disadvantageous to the city,” Mata said, “We don’t know what will happen later on but that is the proper perspective (on) how to handle this situation but since Mayor Lim is still the mayor until June 30, and since they received the ruling before June 30, we deemed it wise to file the motion for reconsideration.”

Fernandez, currently the acting mayor, said she wants the original intent pursued when the city government bought the property, that it be the site of a new city hall.

Fernandez said the city does not have enough funds and a lot to build a new city hall in the crowded downtown area and the city government-owned hotel could be an option.

“The city government terribly lost in the sale of the property by about P150 million because the hotel was valued at P250 million to P300 million,” she alleged.

The hotel was sold to the Makati City-based AMB ALC Holdings and Management Corp. for P119 million and the sale became the subject of a legal action. 

Ryan Ravanzo, secretary to the city council, questioned in court the validity of Resolution No. 6738-2002 approved by the Sangguniang Panlungsod on April 20 last year that paved the way for the sale of the property.

The resolution was passed by nine of 12 city councilors during a special session held while Fernandez, the city council’s presiding officer being the vice mayor, was in the United States.

Aside from Lim, the respondents in the petition were councilors Jesus Canto, Ma. Librada Reyna, Karlos Liberato Reyna, Marc Brian Lim, Redford Christian Mejia, Luis Samson Jr., Alvin Coquia, Guillermo Vallejos, and John Chester Gonzales.

Ravanzo said when the court decided in his favor, it was not his victory but the people’s.

But with the motion for reconsideration filed by Laforteza last June 3, Ravanzo said the fight for the property’s recovery goes on.

“What Atty. Roy (Laforteza) did was inimical to the interest of the city because we are fighting for the recovery of the grossly undervalued MC Adore building,” Ravanzo said.

Judge Samadan said a local government unit like Dagupan City cannot authorize the sale of a private property through a mere resolution of its lawmaking body, adding that Republic Act 7160 or the Local Government Code (LGC) of 1991 “expressly and clearly requires an ordinance for the purpose, thus a mere resolution will not suffice.”

He also cited as fatal to the respondents’ cause the fact that the questioned resolution did not undergo the required two readings in gross violation of Article 107 of the implementing rules and regulations of the LGC.

The MC Adore property, built in the 1970s, has a total land area of 5,113.99 square meters. Its building, consisting of five floors, has a total land area of 11,990.53 square meters. Its helipad at the roof deck comprises 12,673 square meters.

The city government bought the property from the government’s Asset Privatization Trust, which took over it from the Development Bank of the Philippines, for P50 million on an annual installment of P10 million ending in 2007.