THE Supreme Court has found the Makati City government in contempt for forum shopping in connection with its legal battle with Taguig City over which of them owns the Fort Bonifacio district.
The high court’s Second Division found the Makati local government unit guilty of direct contempt and fined the three lawyers that represented it in the case P2,000 each.
The tribunal also granted the petition of the Taguig local government, which has been seeking a modification of the 2013 rulings of the Court of Appeals. Those rulings transferred the jurisdiction over the disputed residential and business district”•including the Bonifacio Global City”•from Taguig to Makati.
The high court sided with Taguig after it found that the Makati government violated the rule against forum shopping when it simultaneously pursued legal remedies before the Pasig City regional trial court and the appellate court seeking the same relief.
The records showed that when the Pasig RTC ruled in favor of Taguig in the dispute, Makati filed a motion for reconsideration and at the same time brought the matter before the appellate court through a petition for annulment of judgment, with both seeking reversal of the RTC ruling.
The high court said Makati’s actions not only “vexed courts and an adverse litigant, but actually gave rise to conflicting decisions not only between different courts but even within the Court of Appeals itself.”
In its assailed July 2013 ruling, the appellate court’s sixth division held that Fort Bonifacio belongs to Makati City.
It declared as constitutional Presidential Proclamation 2475 issued by the late strongman Ferdinand Marcos in 1986, and Proclamation 518 issued by the late former President Corazon Aquino in 1990. Both declared Fort Bonifacio as being under the jurisdiction of Makati City.
The appellate court also reversed a July 2008 ruling of the Pasig RTC that awarded to Taguig City territorial jurisdiction over a 729-hectare property covering the seven military villages and inner Fort villages, including the high-end Bonifacio Global City.