SolGen: Torre builder must pay for demolition

TEAR IT DOWN and pay for it.

This was the Solicitor General’s parting shot at property developer DM Consunji Inc. as he wrapped up the government’s argument in the Supreme Court against the controversial condominium project, Torre de Manila.

“The Honorable Court should directly order DMCI to demolish Torre de Manila, at its own expense…An order of demolition is a natural consequence of the finding that Torre de Manila was built in violation of national and local laws,” Solicitor General Florin Hilbay said in a 46-page memorandum filed in the high court on Monday.

Hilbay said Torre’s construction violated Republic Act No. 10066 or the National Cultural Heritage Act of 2009; Republic Act No. 10086, which bolstered the mandate of the National Historical Commission of the Philippines, and Manila City Ordinance No. 8119, the local zoning ordinance.

His position bolstered that of petitioner the Knights of Rizal, which went to the high court in September last year to demand the building’s demolition for ruining the sightline of the Rizal Monument in Manila. The petition maintained that the condo’s rise desecrated the national monument.

In the memo he filed on behalf of respondents National Museum and the National Commission for Culture and the Arts, Hilbay said the high court should not consider a demolition order a burden since “the danger of loss DMCI now confronts is entirely self-imposed—it has assumed the risks to which it is now exposed.”

“For the Honorable Court to feel otherwise would be to allow DMCI to create facts on the ground and unjustly benefit from the multiple layers of violations it committed in this case. This idea is entirely corrosive to the rule of law and incompatible with elementary notions of fair play,” Hilbay said.

“DMCI knew its permits were void, but constructed Torre de Manila anyway,” he added. “DMCI simply cannot use its supposed ignorance of zoning laws as an excuse. It is expected to have expertise on the requirements and rudiments of seeking permits for the construction.”

HILBAY

He stressed that the cost of the demolition should not be shouldered by the government but by DMCI—a position in response to earlier discussions concerning just compensation for the firm in the event the building is ordered torn down.

The court may also order the Manila city government to cause Torre’s demolition, Hilbay added. “The Honorable Court may require the City Mayor of Manila to require DMCI to make necessary changes in the construction of the Torre de Manila, or to demolish the same to the extent that it impairs the sightline of the Rizal Monument.”

The Solicitor General also took a swipe at a former client in the case, the National Historical Commission of the Philippines (NHCP), for its “jurisdictional hand-washing” when it declared the importance of protecting the Rizal Monument’s sightline while saying “it has no legal justification to remedy such damage to that cultural artifact.”

The NHCP had parted ways with the Solicitor General because of their differing positions.

“The position of NHCP is that the impairment of the sightline of the Rizal Monument is a problem of the City of Manila and, insofar as it is the concerned cultural agency in this case, damnun absque injuria (loss or damage without injury) and thus can no longer be remedied,” said Hilbay. “The government disagrees with this jurisdictional hand-washing.”