Courts clear the way for MRT 7 depot

ALL GO A worker at the construction site for the 22.8-kilometer MRT 7. —GRIG C. MONTEGRANDE

MANILA, Philippines — Two Quezon City regional trial courts  have issued the Department of Transportation (DOTr) and its concessionaire, SMC Mass Rail Transit 7 Inc. (SMRT7), writs of possession to allow them to formally begin construction work for the MRT 7 depot in Quezon City.

Apart from the issuance of the writs, the department said it has formally begun construction in the 20-hectare depot site along Quirino Highway in Barangay Lagro on Tuesday.

According to documents provided to the Inquirer, the site was previously owned by real estate developer Century Communities Corp., which offered to sell the property at P394 million based on the appraised value of P3,600 per square meter.

The writs of possession, issued by Branch 92 and 98 in Nov. 22 and 25, respectively, stemmed from the expropriation cases filed by the department and SMRT7 via the Office of the Solicitor General.

A writ of possession is a writ of execution commanding the court sheriff to enter the land and hand over its possession to the party—in this case, the government—entitled under the judgment.

The court rulings also end the DOTr’s two-year struggle to acquire a depot site for the much-delayed MRT 7, which would connect Bulacan to Quezon City in under 34 minutes.

The department and SMRT7 earlier attempted to secure a 33-ha lot in San Jose del Monte for the depot, but failed after a Malolos court effectively raised the zonal valuation there by nearly 900 percent.

In a statement, Transportation Secretary Arthur Tugade said construction work for the much-delayed depot “signifies much more than a dot in the timeline of the project… It shows us that when the judiciary works hand in hand with the executive department, we are able to pick up speed in delivering infrastructure development.”

The 23-km MRT 7 railway is currently 49 percent complete and is scheduled to begin partial operations in 2021. Once operational, it is expected to ferry between 300,000 to 850,000 passengers per day.