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The Lopez-owned First Philippine
Holdings Corp. said Tuesday it will petition the Supreme Court for
reconsideration of the Sandiganbayan’s decision on the contested
Equitable-PCI Bank shares held by Middle East (Phils.) Equities (TMEE).
TMEE is
controlled by the family of former governor Benjamin “Kokoy”
Romualdez of Leyte, which acquired the EPCIB shares on May 24, 1984.
In a
statement, FPHC said it questioned the ruling of Sandiganbayan’s
Fifth Division that the lawsuit the company filed on December 28,
1988, was “too late.” The Sandigan ruled that FPHC should have
challenged the transaction on the same day TMEE bought the
Equitable-PCIB shares.
However, the
Lopez company reasoned it was not possible for them to file a claim
at that time “due to intimidation, violence or undue influence”
that prevailed in the country under martial law.
“This was
the case with Meralco and ABS-CBN; these companies were seized in
1973, but claims were filed after the 1986 EDSA revolution,” FPHC
maintained.
“Furthermore,
there is a bigger issue that surrounds the case, i.e., the total
lack of consent because the approving board was a dummy board,
making the contract void from the very beginning,” the company
said.
FPHC said the
dummy board was replaced after the Lopez family regained control of
the company, and it took time for the new board to file the claims.
“It is not
whether the judiciary during the Marcos years could render justice
to the claims of the Lopezes,” the company statement said, “but
whether the claims can be asserted at all and that the matter of
whether FPHC can still recover the shares involves factual issues
that could properly be resolved only after trial.”
After February
1986, the Presidential Commission on Good Government sequestered the
ECPIB shares since these were allegedly part of the ill-gotten
wealth of the Romualdez family.
In 1996 the
Supreme Court upheld FPHC’s right to intervene in the
sequestration proceedings on the shares and in 2003, the
Sandiganbayan lifted the sequestration of the said shares but
required that the shares be held in escrow until the true owners are
determined.
 --Likha
C. Cuevas
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