The court has denied the temporary restraining order sought by Filinvest Land Inc. and the Ecological Waste Coalition of the Philippines against a dump operator after finding no compelling urgency nor threat to its surroundings.

Judge Manuel Taro, of San Mateo Regional Trial Court Branch 75, said plaintiffs engineer Antonio Cenon and Filinvest admitted that they ?are not yet in possession of authenticated copies of the document they wanted to present as in fact they manifested their intention to file a motion for the production of other documents in the custody of the different government agencies.?

Denying the need for a temporary restraining order, Taro said in his Feb. 12 order the ?hearing of this case will be for the purpose of determining whether or not preliminary injuction should issue.?

Disposing of the coalition?s request for a similar restraining order, Taro stated in his Feb. 18 order that the ?relief sought for the other dumpsites has become moot and academic because of the admission of the defendant that these dumpsites have ceased to function as such.?

Both filed their application for a TRO to stop the construction, development and operation of the new sanitary landfill in Pintong Bukawe, San Mateo. Results of the global position system showed that the facility was outside the Marikina Watershed area and the protected forested area.

In a map attached to the report of the Environment Department, the San Mateo dump is several kilometers away from the said closed Metro Manila Development Authority landfill or 1.883 kilometers away from the Filinvest property.

In a letter to Filinvest, the Environment Department noted that the site was near Mount Mataba, outside two protected areas straddling San Mateo and Rodriguez?Marikina Wastershed Reservation Park and an unnamed reservation park, wildlife sanctuary and game preserve declared under Presidential Proclamation 1636 dated April 18, 1977.

Filinvest, who claims to own and sit on 677.95 hectares of huge tracks of raw land, started to develop the Timberland Heights in 1990 at the height of the operation of the nearby old and controlled dump and sanitary landfill, then being operated by the MMDA but closed by the Supreme Court in a decision dated Dec. 13, 2005. Gigi Mu?oz David