Payback time: City mayors back Corona ouster

The country’s city mayors, smarting from what they deemed an “illegal” decision of the Supreme Court to convert 16 municipalities into cities, are backing the ouster of Chief Justice Renato Corona.

The League of Cities of the Philippines (LCP), the umbrella group of mayors from 122 urban centers, on Friday expressed in a statement its “unequivocal support” for the impeachment process against Corona, saying there was a need for reform in the high court.

The LCP said the impeachment trial scheduled to start at the Senate on Monday “is the legal means of exacting accountability from erring public officials.”

It said that while some quarters viewed Corona’s impeachment as “diminishing the independence of the judiciary,” it was convinced that “the actions of some Supreme Court justices, the Chief Justice included, had tainted the independence of the judiciary, thus justifying the upcoming impeachment trial to right the wrongs committed.”

Not meet cityhood criteria

In a press conference, Alaminos Mayor and LCP secretary general Hernani Braganza said the group’s beef against the Chief Justice stemmed from the high court’s reversal of a 2008 ruling that declared unconstitutional the conversion of 16 municipalities to cities.

According to Braganza, all the 16 applicant-cities failed to comply with the requirements needed for cityhood such as size, income and population. “It was an illegal conversion,” he said.

The LCP’s case against the conversion of the 16 municipalities is one of the complaints against Corona.

Braganza said the group was prepared to be called by the prosecution panel to give evidence at the impeachment trial.

Reduction of IRA by P5B

The additional 16 cities resulted in a reduction of the Internal Revenue Allotment (IRA) for the Philippines’ urban centers that serve more than 40 million Filipinos, LCP officials said.

They said that by their computation, the mayors lost about P5 billion in funds because of the high court’s ruling.

Puerto Princesa Mayor Edward Hagedorn said the money could have been used to fund services and infrastructure in their cities.

Hagedorn said some urban centers did not have major revenue-generating industries and relied heavily on the IRA from the national government. “This has a heavy impact on our funds,” he said.

Valenzuela Mayor Sherwin Gatchalian, LCP vice president for the National Capital Region, said the decline in their IRA had compelled them to cut budgets for payroll and flood control.

The 16 municipalities were converted to cities in 2007.

In November 2008, the Supreme Court declared with finality the unconstitutionality of the conversion, saying that the municipalities in question had failed to meet the criteria for cityhood. Then Chief Justice Reynato Puno abstained from voting.

The 16 municipalities appealed the ruling. The high court said its decision was final and that no more pleadings would be entertained.

But in the second semester of 2009, the group of 16, through counsel Estelito Mendoza, filed a motion for reconsideration. In December 2009, the high court reversed itself and declared the conversion legal.

It once again reversed itself in August 2010, reinstating its November 2008 ruling.

Political tool

Braganza said he and his colleagues were dismayed and frustrated by the high court’s reversal of its ruling.

He said it was possible that the tribunal’s ruling was used as a political tool to bolster support for the then increasingly unpopular presidency of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

“I don’t want to think it happened like that, but it was going there,” he said.

The LCP also cited the high court’s purported penchant to accommodate Mendoza, as supposedly seen in the reversal of its ruling favoring Philippine Airlines flight attendants who had complained that they were illegally retrenched by the company owned by tycoon Lucio Tan.

It said this was one of the issues that Corona had to clarify at the impeachment trial.

“The question that begs to be asked is, what forced the hand of the Chief Justice to disregard the fundamental rules of the institution he must steer?” the LCP said.

Braganza said that while the other Supreme Court justices were party to the outcome of the case involving the PAL flight attendants, the group was targeting Corona because it “happened under his watch.”

“He should not have been party to the violation of their own rules,” Braganza said.

The mayor also said he did not expect the tribunal to change its ruling on the cityhood case. “We just want reforms and stability in the decisions of the court,” he said.