Corporate and judicial garbage

I’VE never heard of such blatant disregard of our justice system as that undertaken by Metro Clark Waste Management Corp. (Metro Clark).

It has insisted that the government cannot terminate, as it did two weeks ago, its 25-year garbage collection and disposal contract with government firms owning the 100-hectare landfill in Kalangitan in Capas, Tarlac.

(The landfill serves 121 municipalities in eight provinces, namely Pangasinan, Nueva Ecija, Tarlac, Pampanga, Bulacan, Zambales, Bataan and Benguet.)

This is pure garbage, and so were its moves to keep its 25-year-old monopoly.

On June 21, 2024, Metro Clark filed a case against the two government firms, the Clark Development Corp. (CDC) and its supervising agency, the Bases Conversion Development Authority (BCDA), at the Angeles City Regional Trial Court, contesting the termination of its contract.

However:

– On Oct. 22, the court dismissed the complaint, on the grounds that it failed to state a cause of action and was already barred by prescription, and that it was forum shopping (explained below), having filed a similar case in another court.

– Amazingly, even as the case was being heard by the Angeles court, Metro Clark on Oct. 4 filed the same case at the Capas Regional Trial Court (Branch 66) under presiding judge Ronald Leo Haban, asking him to immediately issue a restraining order issued by CDC to stop its garbage operations. Were Metro Court’s lawyers ignorant of the rule that you can’t file the same case in two courts, even in kangaroo courts — in this case, two courts that were just 20 kilometers away from each other? Were Metro Clark’s lawyers so pig-ignorant, or did they know something about the judge that the government firms didn’t?

– Amazingly, the Capas judge issued a 72-hour temporary restraining order (TRO) against CDC, halting the planned closure, on the same day it was filed, Oct. 4, a Friday. The judge must be so dedicated to his job he even sacrificed his weekend such that on Oct. 8, the TRO was extended by an additional 17 days, maintaining the suspension of the landfill’s closure until Oct. 24, 2024.

– Last week, on Oct. 29, Haban issued a preliminary injunction prohibiting the BCDA and the CDC from demanding the eviction of Metro Clark and from taking over the sanitary landfill in Capas, Tarlac. That means that the judge allows Metro Clark to continue its operations, with the two government firms ordered to stop their eviction of the firm until it lifts the injunction or the case is resolved.

Haban

Judge Haban’s decision “enjoined from using force, violence, coercion, threat and/or intimidation in demanding to vacate/actually evicting plaintiff or any of its officers, employees or representatives. And from taking over by the same means, or performing any acts leading to a forcible takeover of the subject premises of the plaintiff, specifically the 100-hectare property, which is the site of the Kalangitan sanitary landfill, until the termination of this case and/or further order/s from this court, or appellate court/s of competent jurisdiction.”

This has never happened in the history of the country’s judicial system.

A case decided on by a regional trial court can be reversed only if the same court grants the petitioner’s appeal, or if the case is brought before a higher court, the Court of Appeals, and then finally to the Supreme Court, the court of last resort. In this case, a ruling by the Angeles City Regional Trial Court is reversed by a Capas Regional Trial Court which totally ignored the decision of its peer court.

The case has caused a stir in Central Luzon, particularly because Haban is relatively young, in his late 40s, and became Capas judge only in 2018, having spent most of his years as a prosecutor in the justice department. There is, of course, a camaraderie among judges in a province, which Haban has apparently rejected. “Nobody thought Metro Clark would be so audacious in filing a case in another court, they were optimistic for some reason, [that the court] would rule favorably to it,” said a CDC official.

Even though Metro Clark’s 25-waste collection contract expired last month, the company refused to stop its operations and sued not just the two government agencies responsible for the landfill site in Capas town but the heads of those corporations for graft, and asked the court to order the government for its contract to be renewed.

The CDC and the BCDA claimed that the 25-year garbage collection contract was under Republic Act (RA) 6957, the Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) Law, passed in 1990. The contract expired on Oct. 24, and does not provide for automatic renewal for another 25 years. The implementing rules of the BOT Law prohibits any court, except the Supreme Court, from issuing TROs or injunctions, on grounds that such legal moves could impede progress in national projects.

Deceptive

Metro Clark, however, insisted that its contract with the government had an “unwritten provision” for a 50-year extension, an argument that is deceptive. The firm also claimed its contract is under RA 7652, the Investors’ Lease Act, rather than the BOT Law. The Investors’ Lease Act, passed later in 1993, allows a renewal of the contract. Metro Clark claimed that there was an “unwritten provision” for a 50-year extension.

The Office of the Government Corporate Counsel (BCDA’s statutory counsel), however, had issued an opinion months ago that the contract indeed was under the BOT Law, and even certified as such by the Office of the President in November 2000, signed by then-executive secretary Ronaldo Zamora.

Months before the expiration of its contract, Metro Clark — headed by Rufo Colayco, who ironically once served as director in CDC and BDCA — undertook a media campaign to pressure the state firms to renew its contract, with a doomsday message, as in a rappler.com May 2 article put it: “Garbage crisis looms with coming closure of Metro Clark landfill in Tarlac.”

A columnist in the Philippine Star wrote two columns in September with the same doomsday threat: “Residents, businesses, as well as industries in Central Luzon, the Ilocos Region and the Cordillera Administrative Region, are now worried about an impending major garbage crisis after the BCDA, and the CDC have revealed that they are pushing through with the impending closure of the Kalangitan sanitary landfill in Capas, Tarlac. A severe waste management crisis in three regions in Luzon affecting millions of people is expected to happen.”

The columnist even claimed that the BCDA has a dark agenda in not renewing the Metro Clark’s contract: “BCDA was also accused of allegedly favoring at least 10 waste management companies, chosen without public bidding, to undertake the waste management and disposal needs of more than 150 local government units (LGUs) (excluding Metro Clark) from the list provided by respondents to the LGUs to undertake their waste disposal.”

Complex

BCDA and CDC had told the Metro Clark a year ago that the Metro Clark cannot use the area as a garbage landfill since the two intend to develop the area into a tourism and shopping complex, since the Clark areas have already been leased out, after 32 years of marketing. The Philippine Star columnist fired a cheap shot at this plan: “Is a tourism-oriented development project really more important than the health and welfare of the people?”

CDC officials who unfortunately have remained silent on the controversy, however, privately claimed that Metro Clark had ample time to prepare for its contract expiration. Instead, it resorted to mudslinging and exaggerated scenarios to maintain its lucrative operations that had gone on for 25 years. It stubbornly refused to acknowledge the authority of BCDA and CDC by citing weak legal arguments. After 25 years of use, the landfill is now an environmental hazard for the Clark-Angeles area, which has become a boom town.

The CDC officials alleged that Metro Clark entered into service contracts for garbage collection with mayors (or firms linked to them) but did not tell them about the imminent expiration of the firm’s government contract. Desperate, these mayors have rallied around Metro Clark to lobby for the government to extend its contract.

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Corporate and judicial garbage
Source: Breaking News PH