Court junks petition of shipyard owners vs Consolacion

CEBU, Philippines — The decision of Consolacion, Cebu Mayor Joannes Alegado denying a business permit valid until December 31, 2021 to shipyard companies in the town stays.

This after the Regional Trial Court said it will not interfere with an exercise of a delegated police power, which is discretionary. It also did not find grave abuse of discretion in Alegado’s decision not to grant the permit.

“The Court will not interfere with this power save for instances when the respondent mayor, in the exercise of this prerogative, did so in grave abuse of discretion, which is not attendant in this case,” reads part of the November 12, 2021 decision of RTC Branch 83 Presiding Judge Allan Francisco Garciano.

In their petition for certiorari and prohibition, the Philippine Grid Construction Corporation, Fortune Shipworks, Inc., Nagasaka Shipyard Inc., PKS Shipping Company Inc., and Uni-Orient Pearl Ventures Inc. asked the court to annul, reverse, and set aside a letter dated June 18, 2021 issued by Alegado and Judith Pepito of the Business Permits and Licensing Office, which denied their application.

They went to court after the municipal government issued a business permit that was only up to June 30, 2021.

Controversial area

The area where the shipyards are located, as the petitioners have been made aware, is to be made part of the 235.8-hectare La Consolacion Seafront Development Project.

The estimated P20 billion reclamation project will start within the year.

Alegado said the town will not sacrifice the general welfare of its own people over the seven millionaire families operating a ship repair business in the area.

“The municipality cannot sacrifice the welfare of its 150,000 inhabitants in particular and the millions of Cebuanos in general over the millionaire families (shipyard owners) who have no more right to occupy their leased areas from the government,” Alegado told The Freeman.

The shipyard owners with some 3,000 people claiming to be employees of these shipyard operators wanted the project stopped as its closure would hamper the maritime sector and workers will be losing their jobs.

“Organizers claiming that more than 3,000 workers will be affected if the shipyards will stop operating but based on the records of the Licensing Office of the Municipality, the combined total number of employees of the 12 businesses operating in the area engaged in ship repair, drydocking, ship building is only 100 employees,” the mayor said.

Alegado also questioned the claim of the shipyard owners that they have serviced 335 vessels in 2019 and 278 vessels in 2020 and only declared a combined gross income of P540 million in 2019 and P440 million in 2020.

“This goes to show that these shipyards are not paying the correct amount of taxes to the government,” he said.

“The shipyards are clearly understating their income because one cannot have many employees while sales are low or are simply trying to bloat up figures to drum up media sympathy,” he said, adding, “they cannot claim sympathy at the expense of the Seafront City Project which will bring development to the area as it would generate hundreds of thousands of jobs once it gets underway.”

PRA

A letter from Philippine Reclamation Authority (PRA) General Manager and chief executive officer Janilo Rubiato addressed to the Shipyard Association Consolacion Cebu states that with the exemption of Fortune Shipworks that submitted to the jurisdiction of PRA and has a pending regularization proceedings with the agency, all other members of the association did not recognize the mandate and jurisdiction of PRA.

In fact, Rubiato said, in many instances, their inspectors requested to get inside the different shipyards but were refused entry.

“It is unfortunate that the very people/entity who refused to recognize the jurisdiction and mandate of this agency are now seeking refuge and protection from this agency from the lawful project of the local government unit of Consolacion, Cebu, that has submitted itself to the jurisdiction of this agency and is faithfully complying with the requirements of existing laws, rules and regulations,” Rubiato’s letter reads.

The proposed reclamation project in Consolacion is a Public-Private-Partnership project for a mixed commercial, industrial, institutional, and tourism development to boost the town’s economic development and complement the development in neighboring cities of Mandaue and Lapu-Lapu. JMO (FREEMAN)