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THE Supreme Court on Monday dealt another blow on
Manila Hotel Corp.’s (MHC) bid to operate the controversial Ninoy
Aquino International Airport Terminal 3 (NAIA 3).
In a 10-page en banc resolution
penned by Associate Justice Renato Corona, the High Court denied
Manila Hotel’s separate motion to intervene in the NAIA 3 case
“for being an improper remedy.”
The pending case was initiated by
Asia’s Emerging Dragon Corp. (AEDC) owned by taipan Lucio Tan.
On March 11, the High Court also
resolved to dismiss Manila Hotel’s motion to intervene on grounds
that its December 2005 decision directing the government to pay P3
billion to the Philippine International Air Terminals Co. (Piatco)
had already become final as of March 17, 2006.
In its Monday decision, the High
Court en banc rejected Manila Hotel’s basis to intervene in the
NAIA case.
“If parties with such a conjectural,
collateral, consequential, expectant and remote interest were
allowed to intervene, proceedings would become unnecessarily
complicated, expensive and interminable. It will only unduly delay
and prolong the adjudication of the rights of the original
parties,” the High Court stressed.
The High Court pointed out that
even if Manila Hotel had a cause of action, “its interest as a
stockholder of Piatco can well be protected in a separate
proceeding.”
“It is settled that the right
to intervene is not an absolute right; it may only be permitted by
the courts when the movant establishes facts which satisfy the requirements
of the law authorizing it,” the High Court said.
In its motion, Manila Hotel
asserted that because of its substantial stakes in Piatco, it has
legal interest in the litigation over the right to run the
mothballed airport.
However, the High Court said
“in this case, the matter in controversy is the NAIA 3. MHC has no
connection at all to this structure. It is merely a stockholder of
Piatco, the builder of NAIA 3. It’s interest, if any, is indirect,
contingent and inchoate.”
In its March 11 ruling, the High
Court said its 2005 decision has long become final and executory,
adding that generally, after a judgment has become executory, the
court cannot amend the same.
The High Court said that its
resolution was only in relation to the expropriation case, and does
not resolve the Manila Hotel motion in relation to the pleading
filed by the Lucio Tan-controlled AEDC, which essentially asked the
Court to compel the government to award the NAIA 3 contract to them.
Manila Hotel informed the High
Court that it had bought 20 percent of Piatco in 2005, and that it
had an agreement with Fraport AG Frankfurt Services Worldwide for
the purchase of its 30-percent equity in Piatco for $200 million.
The firm, which is controlled by
Philtrust Bank owner Emilio Yap, urged the High Court to allow it to
operate and manage the NAIA 3 for 25 years, with 82.5 percent of the
profits to be distributed to various government and charitable
institutions.
Since the December 2005 ruling
has not yet been fully executed, the petitioner, Manila Hotel, said
it wanted to propose an alternative plan to “ease compliance with
the said decision by relieving the Republic et. al. from the huge,
humongous financial burdens involved in following the ruling.”
But AEDC described Manila
Hotel’s late intervention to take over the NAIA 3 as a
“surreptitious move to snatch it from the government.”
“What it intends to accomplish
is to move [the Supreme Court] to award a right to [Manila Hotel]
even if it has no cause of action and is unable to assert a cause of
action,” said Tan counsel Eduardo Ceniza.
 --William
B. Depasupil
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