Cebu City, Philippines –The petition for the issuance of a temporary environment protection order (TEPO) against Apo Land and Quarry Corp. (ALQC) is set to be heard next Thursday, January 10, 2019.
The proceeding, which is set to start at at 2:30 p.m., will be undertaken by Cebu City Regional Trial Court Branch 23 Presiding Judge Generosa Labra.
The petition for the issuance of a TEPO, which aims to halt the quarry operations of ALQC in their Mineral Product Sharing Areas (MPSAs) in Cebu, is in relation to the P4.5 billion environmental class faced by ALQC, its sister companies Apo Cement and Cemex Holdings Philippines, Inc., Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB-7), Naga City local government and the Cebu Provincial government.
The class suit stemmed from the September 20 landslide in Barangay Tinaan in Naga City, which claimed the lives of at least 78 people with six others still unaccounted for.
A 72- hour TEPO was issued on November 9, 2018 by Judge Dennis Larrobis of Branch 76 of the Naga City RTC, who first handled the case.
When Larrobis was supposed to decide whether to extend the TEPO for the whole duration of the proceeding of the main class suit on November 13, 2018, the judge decided to inhibit himself from hearing the case pursuant to the petition file by the counsels of ALQC, Apo Cement and Come Holdings Philippines, Inc.
The defence counsels asked Larrobis to voluntarily inhibit from the case because of his ‘close relationship’ with the complainants’ lead counsel, environmental lawyer Benjamin Cabrido.
Larrobis and Cabrido belonged to the same fraternity and are graduates of the same law school in Cebu City. bjo