Bacolod City Legal Officer Allan Zamora yesterday said he will file today an answer to the case seeking the declaration of nullity of the contract between Bacolod City and Hilmarc's Construction Corp. on the construction of the government center, before the Regional Trial Court.

The civil case was filed Friday last week by Miguel Carriedo, Jesus Lazaro, Ben Solilapsi, Allan Calilan and Abraham Tingson against Bacolod Mayor Evelio Leonardia, HCC, the members of the BAC and the 10 councilors who authorized the Mayor to enter into a contract with HCC. The plaintiffs, all identified with the KABALAKA group, raised issues concerning the bidding process, the over-pricing of materials and claimed that there were provisions of the law that were not complied by the city, among others.

Zamora, who is representing the Mayor and the members of the BAC, said that, once they file their answer with special and affirmative defenses, they will ask the court for a preliminary hearing.

A summons was issued by RTC Branch 44 yesterday asking the defendants to file their answer within 15 days.

Zamora said they asked the court to dismiss the complaint with costs against the plaintiff.

He said the complaint is not a taxpayer's suit and the purpose of the plaintiffs in filing the baseless and malicious suit is to derail or sabotage the construction of the project.

He said the competent agency to determine whether or not a contract is "grossly overpriced" is the Commission on Audit.

Zamora said they have raised three issues in support of their answer and that one of their grounds in seeking the dismissal of the case is that the contract was executed between the city and HCC. How could the court nullify the contract when the city, which is a party defendant, was not included in the case? He asked.

Zamora said the case is not a taxpayer's suit and the plaintiffs do not have the legal capacity and legal standing to file the complaint.

He said a taxpayer's suit can be availed of if they comply with two requirements, and one is if money to be used comes from taxation. In the case of the government center the source of fund is not taxation but the loan from Land Bank of the Philippines, he said.

Zamora said another requirement is that the plaintiff must suffer a direct injury as a result of the enforcement of the questioned contract. He said the plaintiffs have no allegation that they will suffer a direct injury as a result of the construction of the project, so they failed to comply with the two requirements of a taxpayer's suit.

Zamora said the court has no jurisdiction because the plaintiffs did not pay the mandated legal fees citing Section 7, Rule 141 of the Rules of Court.

He said no amount was alleged in the complaint nothwithstanding the fact that the contract sought to be nullified involved P394.9 million for the construction and site development of the government center.*CGS

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