City asks reconsideration on Rallos lot case ruling

The Cebu City government won’t simply yield in its court dispute with the Rallos heirs.

The city is seeking the annulment of the court decision that mandated them to pay at least P133 million to the heirs of Rev. Fr. Vicente Rallos whose lot the city purportedly expropriated for a road in 1963.

Lawyer Jade Ponce, a consultant of Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama, said decades-old court documents would prove that the city government need not pay for a lot that was supposed to be donated by the Ralloses to the local government unit.

“If the court will only give a chance for the city to present its case, it will find that the people of Cebu have a very meritorious case to uphold the 1940 decision which favors the city,” Ponce told Cebu Daily News.

The city, through former Cebu City councilor Jocelyn Pesquera, discovered last July an old convenio or a compromise agreement between feuding descendants of the  Rallos family in the 1940s.

The compromise involved donating the road in Sambag II to the Cebu City government.

The city’s newly found evidence, however, was not taken into consideration by the court, which ruled on the case years ago.

City lawyers mentioned about the convenio during a court hearing last month.

But the document failed to convince Regional Trial Court Judge James Stewart Ramon Himalaloan to set aside a ruling that mandated the city government to settle its dues to the Ralloses.

“A judge cannot amend a final decision. Moreso, where the decision was promulgated by an appellate court. Judge should respect the orders, resolutions, and decisions of higher courts, especially the highest court,” Himalaloan quoted a jurisprudence of the Supreme Court.

The city government is set to contest the court order.

However, Ponce said they are not limiting their legal remedies to just a motion for reconsideration.

He said they will ask the Court of Appeals to annul the judgement rendered some years ago.

“Though the ruling is deemed final, the truth of the matter is that a decision was made a long time ago,” Ponce said.

He appealed to government officials to stop criticizing Mayor Rama for not paying the Ralloses.

“It saddens us that some of our public officials are making pronouncements to just pay the Ralloses. I wish before making an opinion, they need to read the entire records of this case. If not, they have no business on making an opinion regarding something they don’t know,” Ponce said.

He said the mayor could not just release public funds to pay for a property that has been donated to the city.

Ponce said Rama’s administration is making sure it is protecting the people’s interest.

He said the city government is also hoping that its real properties, including a huge portion of the South Reclamation Project, won’t be levied and later on auctioned off just to settle its dues to the Ralloses.

A “Notice of Levy on Execution Upon Registered Real Properties” was recently submitted by sheriff Eugenio Fuentes before the Register of Deeds.

At least two lots, with an area of 97,621 square meters each, are identified in the notice of levy.

The sheriff is planning to sell in a public auction real properties of the city on Dec. 13, 2011, at the sheriff’s office inside the Palace of Justice.