QC folk score anew vs school building project

Quezon City residents opposing the transfer of an international school to Barangay Blue Ridge A have won another round in court.

A local judge on Monday granted the residents’ petition for a preliminary injunction stopping City Hall from issuing permits for the construction of a 12-story building of the Multiple Intelligence International School (MIIS) in Barangay Blue Ridge A.

The ruling handed down by Judge Manuel B. Sta. Cruz Jr. of Quezon City Regional Trial Court Branch 226 extended the 20-day temporary restraining order (TRO) he issued last month on the planned “MIIS Green School” at the corner of Highland Drive and Katipunan Avenue.

Sta. Cruz denied a motion filed by the respondents—the city planning office, the city building office, and the MIIS—that asked him to reconsider the March 24 TRO.

The residents contend that the MIIS project would violate the Revised Quezon City Comprehensive Zoning Ordinance, which made their village part of a Special Urban Development Zone whose “distinct character” must be protected to prevent traffic congestion and the deterioration of public services.

The school is currently located at the corner of Katipunan and J. Escaler Street in Barangay Loyola Heights, Quezon City.

In a text message, MIIS legal counsel Red Bongolan said his client will “seek relief from the order granting the injunction” and has asked Sta. Cruz to inhibit himself from the case “on the ground of prejudgment.”

The judge set the pretrial conference on May 29.

In his latest ruling, Sta. Cruz noted that “while petitioners appear to mainly insist on the validity…of the Revised Zoning Ordinance, a closer examination of the records will show that a greater harm is sought to be prevented in this present application.”

The judge cited the residents’ concerns, noting that “they also wanted to prevent any untoward incident that may happen should there be an earthquake, given that Blue Ridge is close to the Marikina fault line and the proposed site of MIIS’ school abuts a cliff.”

“This court sees that petitioners’ concerns are not simply for convenience. They were able to demonstrate the presence of a strong, valid and compelling interest—the health and safety of residents, and the need to prevent the perceived environmental harm.”

But in a position paper furnished to the Inquirer on Thursday, the MIIS management stressed that it had “sufficiently addressed traffic, earthquake safety, reduced utilities and environmental concerns” in a paper submitted to the city planning and development office.

The school cited a “Traffic Impact Assessment Report” prepared by Pacific Spectrum Environmental Research and Consultancy Inc. saying that road conditions in the area would remain almost the same with the construction of the school building.

As to the site being vulnerable to earthquakes, MIIS said it has submitted a certification from the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Philvocs) dated Nov. 13, 2013, showing that the location lies about 389 meters west of the West Valley Fault. It noted that “the buffer zone against ground rupture hazard recommended by Philvocs is at least five meters on both sides of the mapped fault trace or from the edge of the deformation zone.”

“The MIIS Green School project was over-engineered to withstand the strongest possible earthquake magnitude generated by the Marikina fault line,” it said.

The project, it said, had already obtained an environmental compliance certificate from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources on Feb. 17, proof that it had “passed the DENR’s rigid and stringent environmental impact assessment process.”