{"id":56671,"date":"2015-07-22T17:46:03","date_gmt":"2015-07-22T09:46:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=56671"},"modified":"2015-07-22T17:56:08","modified_gmt":"2015-07-22T09:56:08","slug":"sc-disapproves-bypassing-lower-courts-in-torre-de-manila-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2015\/07\/22\/sc-disapproves-bypassing-lower-courts-in-torre-de-manila-case\/","title":{"rendered":"SC disapproves bypassing lower courts in Torre de Manila case"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Supreme<\/a>
Supreme Court of the Philippines (Photo from Wiki Commons\/Mike Gonzales)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA \u2013 The counsel of the Knights of Rizal (KoR) was asked by the justices of the Supreme Court on Tuesday to substantiate its action of directly filing the case in the High Court and bypassing the lower courts.<\/p>\n

The judges referred to the Knights\u2019 petition for an order of demolition on the 49-story Torre de Manila built by DMCI Project Developers Inc. on Taft Avenue. The controversial building was regarded as an \u2018eyesore\u2019 to the Rizal monument\u2019s sight line.<\/p>\n

During the two-and-a-half-hour oral arguments, the lawyers were unable to answer several queries raised. At one point, acting Chief Justice Antonio Carpio instructed Attorney William Jasarino to respond to the unanswered questions in their memorandum instead.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can remand it or dismiss it. You better address this issue in your memorandum,\u201d Carpio said.<\/p>\n

One issue raised was the KoR\u2019s move of seeking resolution from the SC instead of first filing the petition in lower courts. Justice Marvic Leonen then criticized Jasarino for saying that the lower courts were \u2018excruciatingly slow and inadequate.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cThis early, your honor, I will apologize for the answer I will give. It\u2019s public knowledge that by now it would not have been resolved. The Torre would have already been up,\u201d Jasarino said.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t you think this is unfair, asking the court to bypass all the lower courts? Wouldn\u2019t it have been a matter of better prudence to first go to a lower court as a trier of facts, before we intervene,\u201d Leonen responded, asking if the Knights were seeking \u2018special treatment.\u2019<\/p>\n

Jasarino could not further reason out but denied seeking \u2018special treatment\u2019<\/p>\n

The High Court then converted the KoR\u2019s petition from an injunction to a mandamus, while the counsel referred to Torre de Manila as a nuisance per accidens rather than a nuisance per se.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe already converted your petition from injunction to mandamus, from nuisance per se to [nuisance per] accidens (by accident). Now you ask us to try the facts?\u201d Carpio said, puzzled by Jasarino\u2019s sudden change of mind in referring to the controversial building as a nuisance per accidens.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are not a trier of facts. This requires a trial and for us to review it. You are reversing the process. That\u2019s a big problem,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Jasarino first referred to Torre de Manila as a nuisance per se, saying that the building was unlawful. By now regarding to it as a nuisance per accidens, he is saying that the building became a nuisance by circumstance of its surroundings.<\/p>\n

Adding uncertainty to the case, the National Historical Commission of the Philippines guidelines on monuments or the Venice Charter on the safeguarding, which were presented by the lawyers, have no legal effect on the said case.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA \u2013 The counsel of the Knights of Rizal (KoR) was asked by the justices of the Supreme Court on …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":4486,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1145,16,95,4377],"tags":[249],"class_list":["post-56671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headline","category-news","category-news-ph","category-public-probe","tag-rewrite","mauthors-cyra-moraleda","mauthors-philippine-canadian-inquirer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56671"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56671\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}