TAGUIG City Mayor Lani Cayetano on Tuesday, June 13, personally filed before the Supreme Court an urgent Manifestation and Motion asking it to investigate the false and troubling claims made by Makati Mayor Abby Binay on the land dispute involving the two cities which was already resolved by the High Court.
In filing the said Manifestation and Motion that also asked the High Court to issue a show-cause order against Makati and Binay, Mayor Lani noted the claim made by Binay in media interviews that they received an order setting the case involving the Fort Bonifacio Military Reservation areas for oral arguments.
“While this claim turned out to be totally false, it appeared to support the social media posts about the proposed reopening of the case,” Mayor Lani said, referring to the posts that claimed Binay spoke to President Bongbong Marcos, First Lady Liza, and Chief Justice Alexander Gesmundo, who all supposedly promised to help reopen the case.
The posts went viral days before Binay’s media interviews.
According to Mayor Lani, the social media posts insinuate that there’s an attempt to interfere with the independence of the judiciary.
“That tends to put a cloud of doubt on the impartiality of the SC and the integrity of the judicial system,” the Taguig mayor added.
Apart from this, she noted that Binay is a lawyer, and, therefore, an officer of the court who has an obligation not to issue any false or misleading statement about the case, nor give the appearance of influencing the court and undermining its independence.
Besides, Mayor Lani said Binay gives the impression that she has insider information since Taguig hasn’t commented on Makati’s motion and it didn’t receive the supposed order.
She said that even SC spokesperson Brian Keith Hosaka himself denied knowledge of the supposed order.
Mayor Lani recalled that this is not the first time Makati has violated the rules.
The SC itself had already sanctioned Makati for forum shopping. It castigated Makati, declared it in contempt of court, and imposed a fine on its lawyers for abusing the court processes and procedures.
“We express our grave concern over these recent developments,” Mayor Lani noted.
