Court okays settlement on city scholarship mess

CEBU, Philippines — The Regional Trial Court has approved the compromise agreement entered into by the City of Cebu and the Asian College of Technology (ACT) and/or Asian College of Technology International Educational Foundation, Inc. (ACTIEF) involving the city government’s obligation for the tuition fee of its former scholars.

The city government filed in 2015 a petition for declaratory relief seeking the court’s intervention to determine the legality if it pays the tuition fee of the scholars knowing that the Office of the Ombudsman has found former councilor now Cebu City South District Rep. Rodrigo Abellanosa guilty of grave misconduct for conflict of interest.

The anti-graft office ruled there was conflict of interest in signing two Memorandum of Agreements(MOAs) as Abellanosa was holding “dual positions” as city councilor of Cebu City and president of ACT.

On November 17, Judge Ricky Jones Macabaya approved the compromise agreement and ordered to strictly abide by the terms and conditions thereof.

“After a careful evaluation of the afore-quoted compromise agreement, the court finds that the same is not contrary to law, good morals, good customs, and public policy. Accordingly, the court approves the same,” read the order.

Macabaya said that the New Civil Code encourages compromise agreement in civil cases unless it is contrary to law, good morals, good customs, and public policy.

In the Compromise Agreement, ACT agreed to release the Transcript of Records of all Cebu City Scholars even prior to the full payment by the City of Cebu, after the latter promised to pay their outstanding balance.

The ACT accepts the City of Cebu’s settlement amount of P56, 025,730.08 without interest representing tuition fees for the first and second semesters of the Academic Year of 2014-2015 as full settlement of the claims.

After the grating of the compromise agreement, the Cebu City Government will ask the approval of the Commission on Audit to release P56 million as settlement amount to ACT

Mayor Tomas Osmeña said the city will pay the settlement amount once the city gets the approval of COA.

“I am proud to announce that the court has approved the compromise agreement between the City Government and ACT! What this means is that as soon as payment is made, your TORs (transcript of records) can finally be released,” Osmeña said.

“I know many of you have been waiting for years. I promised you that I would fix the mess we were left with. I have not forgotten. We’re almost there. All that’s needed now is clearance from COA. In light of the court ruling, this will not be a problem,” he added.

The school has billed the city government P186.34 million to cover the second semesters of 2014-2015; second semester of 2015-2016; and first semester of academic year 2016-2017.

City Legal Officer Joseph Bernaldez said the approval of the agreement is also tantamount to the dismissal of the petition for declaratory relief earlier filed by the city government.

“Normally, if there’s amicable settlement, mahog nga dismiss naangkaso. We have to check lang if we need to file a motion,” he told The FREEMAN.

In 2010, Osmeña entered a MOA with the Department of Education (DepEd) and ACT represented by Abellanosa, as one of the participating schools in the implementation of the Cebu City government college scholarship program.

Each qualified scholar was allotted P10,000 per semester. The amount is directly given to the participating schools through the billing system.

Another MOA was entered into by the city government in 2011 with then mayor Michael Rama.In December 2014, the city government said they received a billing for the second semester of 2014-2015, in the amount of P26,180,501.25 from ACT. However, they were hesitant to pay after Abellanosa was found guilty of grave misconduct.

The city government asked the Office of the Ombudsman an opinion on whether or not it should pay the school but the anti-graft office refused to give.

The Ombudsman instead told the city government to raise the matter before the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG). Likewise the DILG refused to issue an opinion as well as the COA prompting the city government to raise it before the court. (FREEMAN)