The Manila Regional Trial Court has dismissed with finality due to lack of merit a petition filed by Manila Vice Mayor Honey Lacuna seeking to stop the implementation of the city’s recently approved P14.88-billion budget for 2017.
In a resolution, Judge Armando Yanga of RTC Branch 173 denied Lacuna’s plea for a Temporary Restraining Order and a Writ of Preliminary Injunction against Ordinance 7810, appropriating the Executive Budget of Manila for this year.
Yanga declared as valid and legal the City Council sessions held last Dec. 15 and Jan. 3 approving the budget ordinance.
“As far as this Court is concerned, the session, or passage of the ordinance done on Dec. 15, 2016 and Jan. 3, 2017 by the herein defendants are valid and legal,” Yanga said in his nine-page decision dated Jan. 13.
“Corollary, considering that the Court has already resolved the prevailing issues, there is no more necessity to prolong the proceedings of this case,” Yanga said. “The resolution of the above-mentioned issues is equivalent to the denial of the complaint; hence it is dismissed for lack of merit.”
On Jan. 3, voting 17-13 with four councilors abstaining, the city council passed on third and final reading the proposed budget ordinance.
As presiding officer of the 36-member council, Lacuna went to court after members of the majority bloc overwhelmingly voted for the passage of the budget ordinance during its second reading on Dec. 15 and on the third reading on Jan. 3.
Named defendants were Majority Floor Leader Councilor Casimiro Sison of the sixth district and all 17 councilors who voted for the approval of the 2017 budget.
Citing “extreme urgency,” Lacuna asked the court to initially issue a 72-hour TRO, and later on a 20-day TRO, enjoining the “defendant, and all persons acting for and in their behalf, from approving and implementing or action on the proposed 2017 Executive Budget pending determination of whether the writ of preliminary injunction should be granted.”
Lacuna claimed the majority councilors conducted “unsanctioned” and “unofficial sessions” that led to the approval of the ordinance.
Sison, Lacuna alleged, suspended the rules of the council during the Dec. 15 session and removed her authority to motion for the adjournment. The vice mayor insisted she did not consent to the Dec. 15 session.
In his testimony, however, Sison said it was Lacuna who violated the rules when she abruptly adjourned the Dec. 15 session so that the budget ordinance would not be tackled.
Under Section 40 of the city council rules, Sison pointed out that only the Majority Floor Leader has the authority to formally declare an adjournment.
With the session adjourned, Sison said he and 22 other councilors, comprising a quorum, resumed the budget hearing at the lobby of the session hall. There, they passed on second reading the proposed budget ordinance.
As to the January 3 session, Sison said Lacuna presided over it, and that the 2017 budget was in the official list of items to be tackled.
The Manila court ruled that the budget ordinance was legally passed as mandated by the Revised Internal Rules of the Sangguniang Panglunsod of Maynila.
Saying it is purely a political question, the presiding judge said the courts, under this situation, “will not interfere in manners which are addressed to the sound discretion of government agencies entrusted with the regulation of activities coming under the special technical knowledge and training of such agencies.”
“The exercise of administrative discretion is a policy decision and a matter that can be discharged by the government agency concerned and not by the courts,” the presiding judge added.
Moreover, Yanga ruled that “it is not within the province of this Court to question the regularity, legality, and manner with which respondents conduct their legislative affairs.”