By Cheryl A. Galili
NO LESS than Chief Justice Reynato Puno confirmed that the Solicitor General’s Office of the Supreme Court had cancelled again the scheduled oral argument that was set for the hearing of the Malampaya case filed by the provincial government against the national government.
Supposedly scheduled on June 9, Puno said this during a recent visit in Puerto Princesa. He, however, failed to elaborate on why it was postponed for the second time.
But Vice Governor David A. Ponce de Leon knows why. He disclosed that the deferment of the oral argument was due to an existing pre-judicial question of constitutionality of Republic Act 9592 or the Baseline Law, which was enacted two months ago.
Ponce de Leon explained that there is apprehension that the Malampaya case might take long to resolve. “The risky part of that is it might take the Supreme Court (SC) a year to resolve the Baseline Law. In this case, the Malampaya will have to wait until that long period time the SC can resolve it,” he said.
He also furthered that the Provincial Legal Team, which he heads, has prepared enough and is confident to articulate the position of the provincial government.
The legal team has six issues to discuss, according to him, which were all mutually agreed upon by both parties and concurred by the court. But a second advisory was issued adding another issue, which was whether or not the Malampaya claim of the province has become “moot and academic” due to the enactment of the baseline law.
“We find this a little bit disconcerting because for the June 9 oral arguments, the Supreme Court had already outlined the issues,” Ponce de Leon said during last week’s regular session of the Palawan Provincial Board.
The insertion of the baseline issue in the second advisory for oral argument, the vice governor thinks, has brought them to back to square one. He admitted that there is a need to double their efforts and study their arguments further now.
Despite the new challenge, he remains optimistic that the legal team is prepared to defend the position of the provincial government on the Malampaya revenue shares.
“The Provincial Legal Team has remained excited and enthusiastic and will be appearing before the SC against a tensed solicitor general. It appears that the solicitor general is the one scared now because for the second time, it moved to reset,” he said.
Questioning baseline law
With Governor Joel T. Reyes’ approval, the PLT will also file a petition to question the constitutionality of the baseline law. Ponce de Leon said that University of the Philippines Prof. Merlin Magallona was the one that first filed a petition against RA 9592.
For Palawan, the petitioners will be the province’s residents “for reasons that the law distorted and downgraded the status of the municipality of Kalayaan by considering it a mere regime of island.”
Ponce de Leon added that the baseline law clearly removed the Malampaya from the territorial jurisdiction of Palawan based on technical description. “That law categorically reduced our territorial boundary, and if we look at the technical description of that law, the Malampaya Natural Gas Project is already located in the so-called international water,” Ponce de Leon explained.
