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The Cebu City government yesterday filed a complaint against Cebu Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia, Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro, and other national officials over a recent agreement that returned the donated military reservation in barangay Apas back to the Capitol.
The city government led by Mayor Tomas Osmeña asked the court to declare as ?null, void, illegal, and unconstitutional? the three memoranda that allowed the transfer of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Central Command (Centcom) headquarters to a new location.
These were Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA), and a presidential memorandum.
The complainants also included Apas barangay captain Ramil Ayuman; and Maria Linda Paracuelles, president of the Alliance of Barangay Apas Community Associations (Abaca).
They asked the court to issue a writ of preliminary injunction and a temporary restraining order against the defendants.
The complainants asked the court to restrain the defendants from implementing the agreements.
Also named respondents in the complaint were Vice President Noli de Castro, chair of the Housing and Urban Development Coondinating Council; National Housing Authority local project manager Gavino Figuracion; HUDCC Regional Director Fernando Garso; and Chloe Osano, Presidential Commission for the Urban Poor.
The area in Apas has been considered a friar land, which can only be used for public service.
Friar lands, the complainants said, cannot be used for commercial, industrial, residential or other private purposes.
The complainants also asked the court to allow the preservation and improvements of the Cebu City Zoo in barangay Kalunasan whose site is also being contested by the Capitol.
They would also ask the court to bar the Capitol from evicting government agencies like the Technical Education, Skills and Development Authority (Tesda) from the lots they purchased under the Friar Lands Act and developing these lands for commercial purposes.
They said the Capitol could not just ask the residents and Centcom to vacate the area in Apas in order to build ?large scale commercial ventures.?
?These commercially grandiose plans of Cebu province disregarded Cebu City, its capital, treating it as a minor cog in its quest to fill its coffers with gold. Defendant?s commercial intent will also effectively displace urban communities through the dislocation of its residents, thereby abrogating and eliminating the most basic power of the barangay,? the complainants said.
Capitol Consultant Rory Jon Sepulveda begged off from issuing any statement regarding the case yesterday, saying he had yet to read the complaint.
Sepulveda, however, said that Capitol officials welcomed the filing of the case.
He said the move was to make Osmeña and the members of the Bando Osmeña Pundok Kauswagan (BO-PK) relevant again to the 5,000 families, who occupy Capitol lots.
Sepulveda claimed that Osmeña had started to become irrelevant to the Capitol lot occupants because Governor Garcia had been taking care of them.
Osmeña, he said could not allow Garcia to end up being the heroine, said Sepulveda.
Sepulveda said Capitol lot occupants were also a big voting bloc and if each of the 5,000 families would have at least five voters in each of these families, this would give Osmeña and BO-PK 25,000 votes.
In the meantime, the complainants said the implementation of the agreements has ?emasculated? the authority of the city to delineate and determine socialized housing zones.
They said Centcom should remain where it stands being the most strategical camp for tactical and operational purposes.
Under the MOU, Centcom will be relocated to the Benito Ebuen Airbase in Lapu-Lapu City.
The 53rd Engineering Brigade will also be transferred to Tuburan town, Cebu.
Rebecca Flordeliz, vice president of Abaca, said they wanted the court to rule on whose contention is legal.
?We considered the Presidential Proclamation valid but the governor said it is already null and void. We have nowhere to go but the court,? Flordeliz said.
