P100,000-bond in coins, bills

Staffers at the Mandaluyong Regional Trial Court must have gotten the shock of their life when two people arrived Saturday to post a bond of P100,000—only in coins and small peso bills.

Clutching four big bags filled with coins and stacks of P100 bills, lawyer Luis de la Paz and another could be seen in a GMA 7 news report last night making the payment, one that would finally enforce a temporary restraining order on a smoking ban in public places.

The 20-day TRO was issued by Judge Carlos Valenzuela of the RTC’s Branch 213 on Aug. 15, upon the request of two security guards represented by De la Paz himself, who were fined P500 each by the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority for smoking on a sidewalk in Cubao, Quezon City.

De la Paz and his two clients, Antony Clemente and Vrianne Lamson, were thrust into the limelight after Valenzuela issued a TRO on the MMDA initiative upon the two security guards’ request.

“The bond was paid by an association … They paid in coins and small bills. Individual contributions from the farmers,” De la Paz told the Inquirer when sought for comment.

Seen accompanying the lawyer was a woman identified as Asuncion Lopez.

De la Paz said Lopez was only one of the 2,000 tobacco farmers who raised the amount that the court had required to cover the claims of damages should its final decision be rendered in the respondent’s favor.

The MMDA, which initiated the no-smoking initiative, was named respondent in the case.

“(Lopez) is one of their (representatives). (She has spent) 30 years planting tobacco,” the lawyer explained, adding that she and her companions were mere minimum wage earners who believe in the cause.

Because of the bond payment, De la Paz said that the MMDA was now enjoined from enforcing the provisions of R.A. 9211, or the Tobacco Regulation Act of 2003.

The law was used as a basis by the MMDA to expand a no-smoking policy that previously only covered government buildings.