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THE Supreme Court has allowed the withdrawal of the
petition of Philcomsat stockholder Manuel Nieto to give way for the
settlement of the stockholders’ row and hold a stockholders’
meeting.
In a 24-page Resolution of the
Court’s 3rd Division, penned by Associate Justice Minita Chico-Nazario,
the Court also junked the petition in intervention of Alma Kristina
Alobba, Nieto’s lawyer, for having no legal interest to pursue the
case which the latter has already withdrawn.
The High Court said that the
withdrawal of Nieto’s petition was with the conformity of
respondent stockholder, the lawyer Victor Africa, in order to settle
their row once and for all.
“The parties to the original
petition, Nieto and Africa, together with the other stockholders of
the Philippine Overseas Telecommunications Corp. [POTC], Philcomsat
and Philcomsat Holdings Corp., had agreed among themselves to settle
the controversies regarding the annual stockholders’ meeting and
the election of the members of the Board of Directors in the said
corporations,” the Court ruled.
The three corporations are
related since the POTC wholly owns Philcomsat, and Philcomsat owns
80 percent of PHC.
Sometime in 2003 a complaint was
filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission alleging that the
PHC had not conducted its annual stockholders’ meeting and was
unable to elect members of its Board of Directors for the years 2001
to 2003.
Nieto decided to withdraw the
case, which his lawyer opposed.
But the High Court argued that
Alobba’s intervention should be dismissed since she is not a third
person who can intervene as required by the Rules of Court.
The Court said Alobba could not
substitute intervention for her lost remedy of certiorari by arguing
that she was a respondent in other cases of Philcomsat. The Court
said that Alobba became a corporate secretary, not because she holds
any personal stake in the corporation but because she was appointed
as the assistant corporate secretary of the POTC and Philcomsat.
The five-man tribunal added that
Alobba could not keep the case alive since she was replaced by Nieto
as counsel and has no leg to stand on to stay with the pending
litigation.
Other justices who concurred in
the ruling are Justices Consuelo Ynares-Santiago, Alicia
Austria-Martinez and Antonio Eduardo Nachura.
 --Jomar
Canlas
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