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U-Turn Price Tag
“Eating words never gave me indigestion,” Winston Churchill would joke. Will our Supreme Court do a “Churchill”? The tribunal somersaulted on a “final” decision” on 16 towns seeking to masquerade as cities. Lamitan in Basilan, Batac in Ilocos Norte and Naga in Cebu, plus other would-be-cities flubbed Republic Act 9009 standards, like generating P100-million in income, the Court found last year. The 16 didn’t tighten tax collection. Nor did they beef up local revenue efforts. Intead, Tandag in Surigao, Bogo in Cebu and Baybay in Leyte, plus the 13 others, opted for palusot: a cushy shortcut, via exemptions, thru piecemeal legislation. The Court refused to play along. “ The Constitution is clear,” Justice Antonio Carpio wrote. “Creation of local government units must follow criteria set.” Applicants may not wiggle thru “exemptions not anchored in law.” The tribunal spiked reconsideration pleas by he “League of 16.” “No further pleadings shall be entertained”, the court said. The decision had become “final and executory.” “Final” means“ finished, unchangeable, not to be altered or undone in relation to a court action”, your dictionary says That’s the opposite of “changeable”, “incomplete” or “inconclusive”. Courts shy from rewriting dictionaries. It’s rules bar Pandora-like unsealing of “final" decisions that guarantee chaos. “We are not final because we are infallible,” US Supreme Court justice Roberto Jackson wrote. “We are infallible only because we are final”. “When is a Supreme Court decision final?,” asked Inquirer’s Cielito Habito. “Apparently, not even when they say so”. The Court, last week, flipped-flopped. It reversed a “final” decision that whacked 16 cities back into towns. On third –or was it fourth? –thought, the 16 towns are cities, the tribunal ruled “It looks every bit like the (Court) eating its very own words”, Habito noted.“ The December U-turn is unprecedented, agreed the League of Cities, which speaks for 120 mayors. The League pressed for reconsideration. Does the 16 recycled cities-decision set a precedent? Can other long sealed cases be unsealed? Jaime Jose, Basilio Pineda and Edgardo Aquino, for example, were sent to the electric chair for the rape of movie-star Maggie de la Riva in 1972. Leo Echegaray was executed by lethal injection in 1999. May their families ask the Court “reexamine it's “final” decisions as a matter of honor? The “ruling would destabilize, not only this Court, but also the executive and legislative branches,” Justice Antonio Carpio wrote in his dissent. It’d “resurrect contentious political issues long ago settled, such as the Pirma initiative and the people’s initiative in Lambino. Charter change could come back to life…and visit a catastrophe on the nation”. In October 2006, the Court dismissed Sigaw ng Bayan and Union of Local Authorities (ULAP) bid for a people’s initiative seeking charter change as a “grand deception”. The 6,327,952 signatures were fraudulent. And the Lambino group’s efforts to swap bicameral presidential government for a unicameral-parliamentary structure was a revision, not a mere amendment, as claimed. Justice Carpio is not the Court. But his clearly-articulated fears resonate “Lack of finality in any policy or decision weakens our unstable investment situation,” former National Economic Development Authority chair Habito noted.“ Congressmen sidelined 27 towns headed via Exemption Expressway, into cities. The court’s somersault has reignited that stampede. Rizal province alone seeks to convert two towns into cities. Why? On average, a city gets P356 million in Internal Revenue Allotments. In contrast, a town receives P48 million in such grants. In 2008, the total IRA pot came up to P210.7 billion. IRAs are not “begging bowls” for LGUs. They’re supposed to prod local officials into crafting sturdy tax structures. It hasn’t worked out that way. IRAs are blank checks without performance criteria. Officials are not held to account. IRAs are de-facto pork barrels. They spur the stampede to become cities. In 1991, there were 60 cities. Many were of dubious viability. The total soared to 131 in June 2007. Few perform as ‘engines of growth.” These “shell cities” strained national government’s ability to finance these units,” World and Asian Development Banks warned in 2000. “The small size of LGUs prevent them from generating their own revenues. Until the Court closed the exemption tap, the 16 “cities” siphoned from the common IRA pool. Bogo’s P60 million IRA, in Cebu province, ballooned into P180 million. Windfalls for the 16 came from picking the pockets of other cities. “Since 1998, Cotabato City suffered a loss of P63 million because of the unabated creation of even undeserving cities,” the mayor griped in a Mindanao Cross ad. “Cities are changing the social fabric and culture of nations,” Asian Development Bank notes “It has the elements of unpredictability and chao Fickle court rulings derail reform and exacerbate instability. Instead of doing a Churchill, perhaps the Court can heed Adlai Stevenson who wrote:“Man does not live by words alone, although sometimes he has to swallow them.” E-mail: juanlmercado@gmail.com |
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