CITING direct interest in the case, the Department of Energy yesterday asked the Supreme Court to reconsider its March 7 decision ordering the closure of the oil terminal at the Pandacan district in Manila.

In a 29-page motion to intervene, the DOE through the Office of the Solicitor General said City Ordinance No. 8027 has been supplanted by Ordinance No. 8119, which gave the oil companies seven years within which to gradually close their terminals and relocate to a new site.

"Since the two ordinances are patently in conflict with each other on the zoning classification of the Pandacan oil depot as well as the period within which the relocation of the businesses concerned should be made, Ordinance No. 8119, being a later local legislation, is deemed to have impliedly repealed Ordinance No. 8027," said Solicitor General Agnes Devanadera.

Ordinance 8027 reclassifies portions of the Manila districts of Pandacan and Sta. Ana from industrial to commercial areas, and directs business owners and operators, including Caltex (Philippines), Inc., Petron Corp. and Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corp., to cease from operating their businesses within six months from the ordinance’s effectivity.

The ordinance was enacted by the Manila City Council on Nov. 20, 2001 and was approved on Nov. 28, 2001. It took effect on Dec. 28, 2001.

Ordinance 8119 gave the oil companies seven years from 2006 to carry out the transfer.

Government lawyers said the implementation of Ordinance 8027 constitutes undue encroachment on the DOE’s regulatory power on critical and vital activities involving energy products and resources.

They said that in enacting pieces of legislation that do not merely regulate but call for the immediate removal of the Pandacan oil depot, the City of Manila effectively arrogated unto itself the DOE’s exclusive power to establish and administer programs for the "distribution and storage of energy resources" as mandated in Republic Act No. 7368, the law creating the DOE.

The enforcement of the SC’s ruling would require the department to perform the "Herculean" task of immediately instituting, in six months, definite solutions to address the resulting fuel shortage and increase in pump prices in the country, the DOE said.

Last March 7, First Division granted the petition for mandamus filed by the political party Social Justice Society and several Manila residents seeking to compel city officials to enforce Ordinance No. 8027. – Evangeline de Vera