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The Government Service Insurance System (GSIS), in a press release
the other day, raised a legal point questioning a decision by the
Eighth Division of the Court of Appeals dismissing a petition filed
by the GSIS with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)
against the Manila Electric Company (Meralco).
The petition had questioned the use by the
Lopez-controlled Meralco of “unvalidated” proxy votes in the
firm’s last stockholders meeting and board election. The SEC
consequently issued a cease and desist order against the use of the
challenged proxies, but the electric firm allegedly defied the order
and went to the appellate court.
The case was raffled off to the CA’s
Ninth Division chaired by Justice Bienvenido Reyes but who was on
leave at the time. A special raffle was held to choose Reyes’
replacement and the choice fell on Justice Jose Sabio.
With Sabio as chair and with Justices
Vicente Roxas and Myrna Vidal as members, the Ninth Division heard
the case. (The GSIS had sought the inhibition of Roxas on account of
reports that he met with Meralco lawyers on the day a temporary
restraining order [TRO] was issued by the CA, barring the SEC from
taking jurisdiction over the GSIS complaint against Meralco.)
At the end of his leave, Justice Reyes
wanted to assume the chairmanship of the Ninth Division in place of
Sabio, but this did not happen because this was in violation of the
CA’s internal rules and procedures.
What came as a surprise to the GSIS was
that the CA’s Eighth Division, now chaired by Reyes and with
Justices Roxas and Apolinario Bruselas as members, came out with a
decision on the case which was supposed to have been heard and
decided by the Ninth Division.
Roxas, whom the GSIS had asked to inhibit
himself, penned the decision dismissing the GSIS petition filed
before the SEC. The GSIS claimed it had not been notified of the
transfer of the case from the Ninth to the Eighth Division. It also
noted that Sabio was “unceremoniously” excluded from the
promulgation of the case which should have been heard in his sala.
How did all this happen?
The GSIS chief legal counsel and
spokesperson, Estrella Elamparo, called it a “patent nullity,”
pointing out that the Eighth Division had exceeded its authority
when it dismissed a petition filed with the SEC by the GSIS and
which was not even pending before it.
“Such dismissal [of the GSIS case before
the SEC] was not even prayed for by Meralco in its petition with the
Court of Appeals,” Elamparo charged.
Elamparo also questioned the decision
which stated that the regular courts and not the SEC have
jurisdiction over the case, citing Supreme Court precedents.
She disputed the ruling declaring that the
GSIS legal department had no authority to act as counsel for GSIS,
explaining this runs counter to Republic Act 8291 which expressly
states that it is the GSIS’ legal department which should act as
counsel for the state pension fund.
Furthermore, the decision said the GSIS
had committed forum shopping. This was questioned by Elamparo who
said that when the the GSIS filed the case with the SEC, it had
already withdrawn the same case from the Regional Trial Court of
Pasay City.
Too bad for the GSIS, the decision even
asked the Supreme Court to discipline and impose sanctions on the
GSIS lawyers for “unauthorized practice of law and violating the
rule on forum shopping.”
“This is unprecedented and a clear
attempt to prevent and derail the GSIS lawyers from performing their
functions,” Elamparo declared.
Is this not a case that deserves to be
investigated by the Supreme Court? If the allegations in the press
release are true, Justice Reyes has something to explain why, as
chair of the Ninth Division, he suddenly became the chair of the
Eighth Division which took jurisdiction over the case pending in the
Ninth Division and decided the case.
agr0324@yahoo.com
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