URBAN POOR VS. BAYANI (QC RTC to junk MMDA Resolutions 03-96 and 02-28)

*MEDIA ADVISORY**MEDIA ADVISORY**MEDIA ADVISORY*

Attention: News Editor, News Desk, Reporters and Photojournalists

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE on April 29, 2006

WHAT: The St. Thomas More Law Center, legal unit of Urban Poor Associates, filed a petition for Preliminary Injunction and/or Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) against respondents Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA), MMDA Chairman Bayani Fernando and Metro Manila Council last April 28, 2005 to question the respondents’ power to conduct evictions and demolitions. There will be a court hearing to present the evidence against the respondents and to ask for a preliminary injunction barring the respondents from using MMDA resolutions 03-96 and 02-28.


WHERE: It will be conducted at the Branch 221 of the Quezon City Regional Trial Court (QC RTC).


WHEN: The Court hearing will start at 8:30 AM on May 2, 2006 (Tuesday).


WHY: For more than four long years, the respondents, under the pretense of “enforcing the law” and in an arrogant and highhanded manner, have disregard due process, ignored legal protections and trampled upon the human rights of the poor, underprivileged and marginalized – the most helpless and least empowered members of Filipino society. The petition filed against the respondents before the RTC aims to remedy this injustice.

The “law” in this case being MMDA Resolutions 03-96 and 02-28 issued by the Metro Manila Council have been used, abused, misused and overused by the respondents to justify the vicious action taken against the poor. The unjust and inhuman manner of demolition and eviction being practiced by the respondents violates significant constitutional mandates enshrined in the Social Justice provisions of Article XIII, and doesn’t comply with the Section 28 of the Urban Development and Housing Act (UDHA), the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESC).