Ex-QC city engineer wants graft raps dismissed on a technicality

Former Quezon City Engineer Alfredo Macapugay has asked the Sandiganbayan to dismiss the graft cases filed against him over the 2001 Manor Hotel fire that killed 74 people on technical grounds.

In a 13-page motion, Macapugay claimed the Sandiganbayan does not have jurisdiction over his cases because the information erroneously charged him as a “city engineer or building official.”

He said the charges against him should have been filed with courts of first instance since the Sandiganbayan only has jurisdiction over cases of public officials who are department heads or are receiving salary grade 27.

“It is thus evident that the instant cases fall within the exclusive jurisdiction of the proper first level courts,” Macapugay said.

Macapugay was charged with three counts of graft in 2002 because he and other city officials allegedly allowed Manor Hotel owners to continue its operations from 1999 to 2001 despite the City Fire Marshall's recommendation for its closure after noting numerous violations of the National Building Code and Fire Code of the Philippines.

State prosecutors said the accused city officials dispensed with the mandatory annual inspection of the building’s “structural, sanitary, and electrical safety systems.”

Macapugay, however, argued that there was no way he could have committed the offense imputed to him because Section 477 of RA 7160 of the Local Government Code of 1991, which enumerated the functions of the provincial, city, or municipal engineer, inspection and supervision of private buildings was not included in the charge sheet.

“Evidently, therefore, his erroneous inclusion as City Engineer in the subject Information has not conferred the Honorable Court with jurisdiction over the instant cases,” the accused's lawyers said.

Macapugay also argued that the job of inspecting the structural safety of private establishments belongs to the “city building official," which was a position assigned to him but not accorded a designation as a separate department or corresponding salaries and benefits.

“While the offenses charged may possibly have relation to the office of herein accused-movant as building official, herein accused-movant is not a Department Head because there is no Department of Building Official in the Revised Charter of Quezon City as well as the Local Government Code of 1991,” he said. —KBK, GMA News