Court stops MMDA from demolishing waiting sheds

The Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA) suffered another legal setback after the Quezon City Regional Trial Court (RTC) barred the agency demolishing waiting sheds constructed by two private advertising companies.

Quezon City RTC Judge Henry Jean-Paul Inting issued a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO), in favor of High Desert Philippines and High Desert Stop-Overs Inc.

The court restrained MMDA Chairman Bayani Fernando and other officials from dismantling waiting sheds built by the two firms over the years.

Fernando said the MMDA will respect the issuance of the TRO by the court.

"So sad," said Fernando when asked by The Star for comment.

High Desert claimed to have an existing memorandum of agreement with the government giving it the right to put up passenger waiting areas in the metropolis. The firm is also using the structures for advertising purposes.

Waiting sheds built by the firms carry billboards and posters of various products.

Fernando ordered the dismantling of the structures a month after typhoon Milenyo ravaged Metro Manila and southern Luzon and destroyed large advertising billboards along EDSA.

The MMDA and the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) started dismantling the huge billboards along EDSA and later the two agencies started the demolition of medium-sized billboards displayed placed on waiting sheds.

Judge Inting, in a three-page order, explained that in order to protect the interest of both parties and prevent grave injustice and irreparable injury to the plantiffs should it be determined later that the plaintiffs had not violated any conditions of the memoranda, the court issues a TRO.

The court issued the order a week after High Desert, through their lawyer Rita Linda Jimeno, asked the court to intervene and issue a Writ of Preliminary Injunction against the MMDA.

"After hearing the arguments and evidence presented by the parties, the court finds that there are existing memoranda entered into by the plaintiffs with the MMDA which were rescinded in the MMDA letter dated Aug. 8, 2006 for the reason that the waiting sheds constructed under the memoranda are nuisance per se, considering that they were constructed in violation of the memoranda, the National Building Code and existing rules and regulations prohibiting the installation or display of commercial advertisements along the road right of way and that sidewalks are beyond the commerce of man," Inting said.

"The defendant terminated the memoranda without regard to the rights of the other party. The defendant’s allegations are a matter of evidence which can be proved and threshed out only in a hearing," he added.

The court noted that generally, "the rule is that to rescind a contract is not merely to terminate it but to abrogate and undo it from the beginning not merely release the parties from further obligations to each other in respect to the subject of the contract, but to annul the contract and restore the parties to the relative positions which they would have occupied if no such contract had ever been made."

Inting said the TRO will remain in effect until the court resolves the petition for the issuance of a Writ of Preliminary Injuction as he scheduled a hearing on Nov. 9, 2006.