DoJ asked to question ordinance granting tax relief to telecom firm

A disagreement among Manila City government officials over the recent approval of an ordinance that grants tax breaks to a telecom firm has been elevated to the Department of Justice (DoJ).

Last week, city legal officer Renato de la Cruz withdrew the declaratory relief petition he filed with the Manila Regional Trial Court and took it to the DoJ.

“Cases [filed] with the DoJ will be resolved within 60 days whereas if we leave it to the courts, it will take longer,” De la Cruz said in a phone interview.

He asked the DoJ secretary to challenge the constitutionality of Ordinance No. 8229.

The ordinance, which was approved by then acting mayor, Vice Mayor Francisco “Isko Moreno” Domagoso, and the city council, exempted Smart Telecommunications Inc. from paying the city government franchise and real property taxes on all machinery and equipment in its cell sites in the city.

It was passed on April 26 while Mayor Alfredo Lim was on vacation in the United States. On May 18, Lim filed a declaratory relief petition asking the courts to nullify the ordinance for being unconstitutional. Named as respondents were Domagoso and the city councilors.

Councilor Joel Chua, meanwhile, criticized De la Cruz, saying the ordinance had passed De la Cruz’s office and even bore his countersign. “The ordinance went through normal procedures. No official correspondence was given by the mayor’s office or any representative to the city council during the first, second or third reading,” he said.

“They knew about it and could have actively participated from the start. We weren’t hiding; the city council sessions were even held in basketball courts,” Chua said.

De la Cruz, in a letter to the Inquirer, said that when he signed the ordinance, it was only meant to denote review and not approval or recommendation.

“[I] was only furnished a copy of the said ordinance after the third reading for recommendation to the Mayor after [it] was already approved by the City Council. [I] initialed the said ordinance, not to signify approval but only to note that [it] underwent review,” De la Cruz clarified.

He added that he even issued a “strongly dissenting legal opinion” addressed to Domagoso on April 26, asking that the signing of the ordinance be deferred and the matter left to Lim because of constitutional issues and the possible loss of revenues for the city government.

De la Cruz insisted that the mayor’s office had 10 working days to veto the ordinance from April 26 but Domagoso approved it even before the deadline which prevented Lim from “exercising his veto power.”

Chua earlier defended Domagoso, saying the ordinance would have “lapsed into law” anyway after 10 days of inaction from the mayor’s office because Lim returned to the country on May 6.

He called the declaratory relief petition unfair and said he felt hurt by the suggestion that the council had passed the ordinance hastily to take advantage of Lim’s absence.