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Court nullifies ordinance ‘favoring’ bus terminal ‘ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=” subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=”]
BY MERIANNE GRACE EREÑETA
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ILOILO City – What will happen to the Ceres bus terminal in Barangay Camalig, Jaro district? The Regional Trial Court (RTC) declared null and void the city ordinance that allowed the barangay to host the bus terminal.
In a decision dated Sept. 26, 2016 but made available to the media only yesterday, Presiding Judge Victorino Oliveros Maniba Jr. of RTC Branch 39 found “very persuasive” the arguments raised by several taxpayers against the city government’s Regulation Ordinance 2014-049.
Regulation Ordinance 2014-049 amended Regulation Ordinance 2013-3444 (Perimeter Boundary Ordinance) that identified several barangays as locations for transport terminals.
Barangays Camalig and Buhang were not identified in Regulation Ordinance 2013-3444 passed in Aug. 27, 2013.
Regulation Ordinance 2014-049 was approved by the Sangguniang Panlungsod in Jan. 14, 2014. According to the court, this was passed to favor Vallacar Transit Corp., operator of Ceres buses.
The approval of the franchise ordinance (2014-015) for the Ceres bus terminal in Barangay Camalig on Jan. 7, 2014 – a week before Regulation Ordinance 2013-3444 was amended – bolstered the argument that the ordinance favored Vallacar, according to the court.
Under Regulation Ordinance 2013-3444, only the following barangays were allowed to host transport terminals for vehicles from northern Iloilo (North Area): Tagbak, Balantang and Buntatala.
The court also found out that no public hearings were conducted for Regulation Ordinance 2014-049.
It noted the “haste and utter disregard” of existing requirements to pass an ordinance.
“…Barangays Camalig and Buhang were not part of the barangays where terminals are allowed to be established” under Ordinance 2013-3444, stressed the court.
Judge Maniba ordered the city government to cease and desist from implementing Regulation Ordinance 2014- 049.
The city government may argue that Regulation Ordinance 2014-015 already amended the Perimeter Boundary Ordinance (Regulation Ordinance 2013-3444), according to Maniba, “but we have to remember that amendment by implication is frowned upon and this seems to be the case of Regulation Ordinance 2014-015.”
The “inescapable conclusion, therefore, is that Regulation Ordinance 2014- 049 is an invalid ordinance because it was enacted to favor a particular person or entity, an act proscribed by Republic Act 7160 or the Local Government Code,” stressed Maniba.
The Ceres bus terminal opened on Dec. 1, 2015. Vallacar Transit Corp. moved all its buses from the transport terminal in Barangay Tagbak, Jaro to its own new terminal in nearby Barangay Camalig.
The Perimeter Boundary Ordinance was designed to decongest the city’s streets of public utility vehicles from the provinces. It allowed the establishment of transport terminals in the peripheries of the city. Only in these terminals can public utility vehicles from the provinces may load and unload their passengers; they cannot enter the city.
The December opening of the Ceres bus terminal courted controversy. The transport terminal in Barangay Tagbak became almost desolate, according to vendors that Panay News interviewed.
With no customers, the adverse economic repercussions of the Ceres bus terminal on their livelihood were tremendous, they said./PN
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