The Supreme Court (SC) has dismissed a petition filed by the realty firm Ortigas & Co. against the Pasig City government which said the firm failed to comply with local regulations requiring the designation of “appropriate recreational and playground facilities” at its former Capitol VI Subdivision, now the Pasig City side of the Ortigas Center.
In its decision, the SC’s Third Division through Associate Justice Roberto Abad dismissed the petition filed by the company which claims that the Pasig City government should have first taken the case to the Housing and Land Use Regulatory Board (HLURB).
The SC instead said the government not being a buyer or owner of a condominium lot or owner may initiate the case before the local courts instead of the HLURB.
Associate Justices Diosdado Peralta, Lucas  Bersamin, Martin Villarama Jr. and Estela Perlas-Bernabe concurred in the ruling which affirmed the Court of Appeals’ ruling on the controversy and ordered the Pasig City regional trial court “to hear and decide the case before it with deliberate dispatch.”
“Not every case involving buyers and sellers of subdivision lots or condominium units can be filed with the HLURB. Its jurisdiction is limited to those cases filed by the buyer or owner of a subdivision lot or condominium unit,” the SC said.
“Obviously, the City (of Pasig) had not bought a lot in the subject area from Ortigas which would give it a right to seek HLURB intervention in enforcing a local ordinance that regulates the use of private land within its jurisdiction in the interest of the general welfare. It has the right to bring such kind of action but only before a court of general jurisdiction such as the RTC,” the high court explained.
The realty company developed the Ortigas Center that straddled the three cities of Mandaluyong, Quezon and Pasig. The case concerns the Pasig City side of the commercial district known as the Ortigas Center, known in 1969 as Capitol VI Subdivision.
In 1994 Pasig City filed a complaint against Ortigas and Greenhills Properties Inc. (GPI) for specific compliance before the regional trial court (RTC) of Pasig in Civil Case 64427.
The city alleged that Ortigas failed to comply with Municipal Ordinance 5, Series of 1966 (MO 5) which required it to designate appropriate recreational and playground facilities at its former Capitol VI Subdivision (regarded as a residential site), now the Pasig City side of the Ortigas Center.  
Further, the city alleged that despite the fact that the plan was only approved by the municipal council as to layout, petitioner proceeded to develop the property without securing a final approval.
The city impleaded GPI as the party to whom Ortigas sold a piece of property within the subdivision.
In answer, Ortigas alleged that its development plan for the subject land was for a commercial subdivision, outside the scope of MO 5 that applied only to residential subdivisions; that the city cannot assail the validity of that development plan after its approval 25 years ago.  Its development plan had been approved: (1) by the Department of Justice through the Land Registration Commission on June 16, 1969; (2) by the Municipal Council of Pasig under Resolution 128 dated May 27, 1969, and (3) by the Court of First Instance of Rizal, Branch 25 in its Order dated July 11, 1969.
Ortigas further alleged that only in 1984, 15 years after the approval of its plan, that the National Housing Regulatory Commission imposed the open space requirement for commercial subdivisions.