Kabankalan Regional Trial Court Judge Henry Arles yesterday issued a writ of injunction ordering the estate of the late Joaquin Bilbao Sr. represented by its judicial administrator Joaquin Bilbao Jr. to stop blocking the highway in Barangay Pook, Hinobaan, putting up a toll gate and collecting fees.

Bilbao was also ordered to remove all obstructions to the Hinobaan-Basay Road traversing Lot. No. 3920-E-I-Q-20 in Barangay Pook. Bilbao had imposed the toll earlier for what he charged was failure of the Department of Public Works and Highways to pay his family for the land the road was passing through.

When the court ordered him to stop charging a toll fee, he closed the road but allowed vehicles to pass through an alternate route through his property.

Bilbao said he had taken such action for failure of the DPWH to respond to his demand for payment.

The judge said Bilbao's act of charging a toll fee and closing the road caused so much inconvenience to the traveling public.

Besides collecting toll fees without legal authority to do so with amount to illegal exaction or robbery, the judge said.

Unless Bilbao is immediately restrained from his act, the judge said "the public will surely suffer great and irreparable damage caused by such whimsical and illegal act of the respondent."

The judge also said in the absence of any order or approval by the court, Bilbao cannot simply act on his on volition and close the road.

The road closed by Bilbao formed part of the highway connecting Basay, Negros Oriental, to Hinobaan, Negros Occidental, that serves as a link between two provinces, the judge said.

"Being a national highway it has acquired public character that every person has a right to use it," the judge said.

If the Bilbao estate has a claim over a portion of the highway by way of compensation, it should direct its claim to the DPWH and not against the public who are using the road he closed, the judge said.

Bilbao last night said he was denied due process because the judge issued the writ of injunction without considering a position paper he was ordered to submit to the court.

Bilbao said the judge gave him five days to submit a position paper and the fifth day was Monday. Under the law that position paper could be mailed on the due date on Monday, he said. "How could the judge issue on order without waiting for my position paper?" Bilbao asked.*CPG

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