The leak city hall must be responsible for

Not very long ago, my youthful corporate boss, who bears the initials JFG, and I were cruising along the Trans-central Highway, that long lonely stretch of a concrete and at times winding road towards the western side of the island, when a teenager was jumping up and down the side. He was waving for us to stop and presumably, allow him to hop aboard our vehicle to an unknown forward destination. My boss, a kind-hearted scion of a wealthy family, wanted to accommodate the hitchhiker. But, I signaled a hesitant objection and so, after a slight pressure on the brake, he sped ahead. As we passed by the would-be passenger and proceeded along our way, I shared with him of a legal principle in my attempt to explain my obvious lack of kindness.

I told JFG that there was a great responsibility that would flow as a consequence of his acting Samaritan. Looking always to be on the defensive, I explained that taking in a passenger, like the presumed hitchhiker, even on a free accommodation basis because he would not be made to pay any fare, would make us some kind of a guarantor of his safety. Should any injury come the way of the would-be passenger arising from any reckless handling of our vehicle would be our liability. In other words, we would be responsible to pay for any damage suffered by the hitchhiker and we could not even offer as defense the fact that we were just trying to do him a favor.

I was happy that he listened to my verbose exposition. Although not normally the introvert type, he was silent most of the time that I did the talking. When he opened his mouth, it was as clinical as asking relevant questions could be. Many of his queries necessitated further explanations. At the end of my discourse, the boss still threw me off-guarded. He asked that if we would be considered to have assumed the risk of taking in an accommodation passenger and be held liable to pay for the damage to him, could the situation be taken as an analogy to a particular series of incidents happening at our Cebu City hall?

JFG was hypothetical. A businessman, he continued, visited city hall to pay his permit fees. While trying to figure out how his transaction could be handled efficiently at city hall, an insider, meaning a person who claimed to be an employee, approached the visitor. To the great relief of the businessman, he met a government worker who offered to handle the transaction because, the insider said, it was "part of his job" to do so. Indeed, few days later, the city hall visitor got his permit and he was profuse in his thanks. As required, he placed his permit in the most conspicuous part of his shop and everything was fine.

Yes, everything was fine until a group of inspectors from the office of the city mayor came. The businessman was told that his permit was "fake" and that his payment for it did not go to the coffers of the government. Worse, unless he would cough up the correct amount to pay for the permit, his establishment would be "closed".

JFG posed a dilemma. To him, the situation was most unfair. He understood that we would be considered to have assumed the risk of taking in a hitchhiker because we were under no obligation to allow him to ride with us. What JFG could not fathom was the absence of any protection to an innocent businessman who was misled by a city hall insider into doing business with him. That administrative leak, my boss said, should be for the sole account of city hall. It should be repaired without inflicting any cost on the part of the businessman-victim. After all, to JFG, it was the responsibility of the city to make sure that anyone transacting business under its roof would not become prey to vultures. It would definitely add unbearable insult to the businessman's injury to close his shop as a consequence of his trusting a city hall insider work for the issuance of his permit especially that he paid good money for that purpose. How can I argue against that?