Laguna folk sue Skyway managers

Laguna residents filed Thursday afternoon charges of breach of contract against the operators of the Skyway system.

Residents of San Pedro, Binan, Sta. Rosa, and Calamba, led by the Movement for Responsible Enterprise (MORE) headed by lawyer Fernando Rueda Perito and Ray Junia, filed a nine-page complaint against the Philippine National Construction Corp. (PNCC) and Citra Metro Manila Tollways Corp. (CMMT) in the Regional Trial Court (RTC) of San Pedro, Laguna.

Junia, a resident of Pacita Complex in San Pedro and representing plaintiff, is seeking P2.5 million in moral and exemplary damages.

The residents also filed a petition for a temporary restraining order (TRO) and a subsequent injunction on the toll rate increase in the South Luzon Expressway (SLEX).

The suit was the residents’ answer to Citra’s boasts that they cannot protest the new toll rates increase it implemented in the SLEX on Jan. 1 by virtue of a "contract" with the Indonesian company in 1995.

The said "contract" was Citra’s advertisements in their information campaign on the benefits of the Skyway system, one of which was the reduced travel time from Alabang to Magallanes, from two hours to 30 minutes.

"Plaintiffs could not stage any opposition or protest over such decision as it has allegedly entered into a contract with them and that had been well defined in their ads and such acts of information, for the defendants, that would mean a contract already, hence, unassailable," the residents said in their complaint.

But the residents said the "so-called 30 minutes" travel time was only attainable on holidays and non-working days. Traffic remained hellish on ordinary days.

"As the defendants relied on the contract, plaintiffs are seeking now the strict adherence to their much advertised shortened travel time," the residents challenged in their complaint.

The Skyway system, constructed in 1995, was a project of the CMMT, a partnership between the PNCC, a government corporation, and Citra, to solve the traffic problem on the SLEX.

After its construction, toll rates increased by nearly 1,000 percent. It was met by massive protests, forcing Citra to launch an information campaign on the benefits of the Skyway system.

"Their campaign succeeding, the users abandoned their protest aware of the public commitments of Citra," the residents said.

The users protested anew when last year, Citra announced another toll rate increase without the benefit of a public hearing.