By MARK MERUEÑAS, GMA News July 21, 2015 7:56pm (UPDATED 9:55 p.m.) Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio on Tuesday said the Supreme Court can either dismiss or remand to a lower court the Knights of Rizal petition seeking to demolish the Torre de Manila condominium. During interpellation on Tuesday, Carpio said petitioner Knights of Rizal's plea seemed to be touching on facts about the construction of the building and its effect on its surroundings, something which the high court cannot try. "We are not a trier of facts. This requires trial and for us to review it. You are reversing the process. That's a big problem," said Carpio. On the options available to the high court, Carpio said they "can remand it or dismiss it." He advised the petitioner to "address this issue" via memorandum. Remanding the case means sending it back down to a lower court that would have the authority and competence to ascertain facts and circumstances. Kind of nuisance Knights of Rizal legal counsel William Jasarino had said the Torre de Manila building was a "nuisance per se" (by itself) and that the local government unit of Manila has a "ministerial duty to abate it." But when asked by Associate Justice Francis Jardeleza, Jasarino said the condominium was not a nuisance per se but "nuisance per accidens (by accident or under the circumstances)." Nuisance per se and nuisance per accidens are civil law property relations concepts and in past cases the high court has decided on, it has repeatedly said that a nuisance per accidens "cannot be abated without due hearing thereon in a tribunal authorized to decide whether such a thing does in law constitute a nuisance." In an en banc ruling, the SC way, way back on April 26, 1939 said that "nuisances are of two kinds: nuisance per se and nuisance per accidens. The first is recognized as a nuisance under any and all circumstances, because it constitutes a direct menace to public health or safety, and, for that reason, may be abated summarily under the undefined law of necessity. The second is that which depends upon certain conditions and circumstances..." Authority of lower courts on nuisance matters The senior associate justice explained that the SC cannot rule on whether the building is a nuisance per se or per accidens because that would require having witnesses testify on facts, something that cannot be done at the SC level. "We already converted your petition from injunction to mandamus, (then) from nuisance per se to accidens. Now you ask us to try facts," Justice Carpio said. Associate Justice Marvic Leonen stressed to the petitioner that factual issues should be raised in lower courts, and advised it not to "make factual assertions in a court of law without the corresponding evidence." Leonen suggested if it would not have been better for the Knights of Rizal to file a case with a trial court first where it can "establish the facts" before running to the SC. To which Jasarino said they no longer bothered to file an injunction before a lower court because "by now, it will not have been resolved. Torre de Manila would have already been up." But there are rules for skipping over the lower courts. Leonen said the petitioner was asking "procedural exemptions" in bypassing the lower courts when it claimed lower courts are "excruciatingly slow." Leonen also asked the Knights of Rizal how the Torre de Manila would impact on how the nation regards Jose Rizal. "Do we destroy his memory because of the building at the back?" said the magistrate. Leonen also reacted to Jasarino's earlier statement in the oral debates that the Luneta Park is the "soul of the nation." "The SC does not have the capacity to say that this is the soul of the nation, and thus create a special easement of light and view," he said. — NB/ELR, GMA News Go to comments More from: http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/525962/news/metromanila/sc-may-dismiss-or-remand-case-vs-torre-de-manila-justice-carpio-says