3-7-2023 (MANILA) In a recent ruling, the Supreme Court (SC) of the Philippines has acquitted former president Rodrigo Duterte in a case involving allegations of simple misconduct related to the demolition of a canal project in Davao City during his tenure as mayor in 2010.
The canal project was initially initiated in 2006 by Prospero Nograles, who was then the first district representative of Davao City. Nograles subsequently filed the case with the Office of the Ombudsman.
On Friday, the SC upheld the 2011 decision of the Court of Appeals (CA), which had overturned the ombudsman’s order to suspend Duterte, along with Wendel Avisado (then city administrator), engineer Jose Gestuveo Jr., and legal officers Elmer Rano and Melchor Quitain, as well as Yusop Jimlani, the chief of the city’s drainage and maintenance unit, for a period of six months.
The SC dismissed the petition filed by the ombudsman and Nograles, who sought to overturn the CA’s decision. The SC concluded that Duterte and the aforementioned officials had not committed misconduct when they ordered the demolition of the project, as the resulting floods did not pose a threat to the safety of the community.
Nograles had sought the opinion of then-Justice Secretary Raul Gonzales, who stated that “the erection, construction, alteration, repair or demolition of a structure requires a permit from the building official of the place where the structure is located.”
In rejecting the appeals of Nograles and the ombudsman, the SC acknowledged that although the project did not constitute a nuisance, it found that several provisions of the revised National Building Code’s implementing rules and regulations “could not be complied with, since the structure was a public edifice, and the demolition was carried out with the participation of the Department of Public Works and Highways.”
It is worth noting that Duterte, who was a candidate for vice mayor during that period, was suspended just weeks before the 2010 elections.
