THE SUPREME Court has refused to lift a stay order stopping the construction of a common station linking two of Metro Manila’s elevated railways, as the lawsuit by SM Prime Holdings, Inc. remains pending before a Pasay City court.

In a 22-page unsigned resolution dated April 18, the SC First Division denied the motion by the Department of Transportation and Communications (DoTC) and the Light Rail Transit Authority (LRTA) to lift the temporary restraining order (TRO) it issued on July 30, 2014.
 
Instead, the high court directed Branch 111 of the Pasay City Regional Trial Court to “resolve with dispatch” SM Prime’s action for specific performance and damages.
 
SM Prime sued the government for breach of contract, after the DoTC in 2013 decided to transfer the common station, which was supposed to link the Light Rail Transit (LRT) Line 1 and Metro Rail Transit (MRT) Line 3, to a site across the Ayala group’s TriNoma mall.
 
The property giant, owned by the country’s richest man Henry Sy, Sr., and LRTA had entered into an agreement for the common station to be located at a junction near SM City North EDSA on Sept. 28, 2009. A month later, SM Prime paid P200 million for naming rights for the LRT-MRT station.
 
Affirming the continued effectivity of the TRO, the high court said the dispute should be resolved first by the Pasay City court before the P1.4-billion project is allowed to continue.
 
“The Court cannot turn a blind eye to the serious implications of a change in the location of the Common Station,” stated the resolution signed by First Division Clerk of Court Edgar O. Aricheta.
 
The high court highlighted that lifting the TRO while the lawsuit remains pending may render the Pasay City court’s eventual judgment moot in the government’s favor.
 
“It is to the benefit of the common good that the issue of the legality and propriety of the transfer of the Common Station be threshed out in proper proceedings before work on the Common Station be allowed to commence as such work cannot be undone without great, perhaps even immeasurable, cost to the public.”
 
At the same time, the high court deferred action on SM Prime’s plea for the issuance of a permanent injunction against the transfer of the common station.
 
It said that SM Prime’s entitlement to an injunction depends on the issue of whether it has such rights under the contract, an issue still being litigated by the Pasay City court.
 
The high court also rejected the government’s claim that SM Prime committed forum shopping by heading to the SC for a TRO while the RTC case is still ongoing.
 
The decision stressed that RTCs have no jurisdiction to issue a TRO on national government projects unless the matter concerned an urgent constitutional issue. Instead, SM Prime only had the high court to go to.
 
The SC noted that neither LRTA and DoTC have denied that the existence of the MoA (Memorandum of Agreement) with SM Prime.
 
Transportation Secretary Joseph Emilio A. Abaya did not respond to requests for comment.
 
LRTA had argued that the DoTC has the discretion to determine the proper location of the common station. Meanwhile, the DoTC claimed it exercised its discretion after seeing it will be for the best interest of the public. It argued that the transfer of the project was “clearly an executive policy beyond the ambit of this Court’s power of judicial review.”
 
While the dispute has been ongoing for the past three years, SM Prime President Hans T. Sy stated as recently as January that the firm is “open” to a compromise that will see the construction of twin stations in front of both SM City North EDSA and TriNoma.