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By William B. Depasupil, Reporter
The Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) scored another
victory against the Government Service Insurance Service (GSIS) as
their corporate battle shifted to the Court of Appeals.
Earlier this week, the Lopezes, the owners of
the country’s biggest power distributor, retained control of the
Meralco board in an acrimonious tussle with Winston Garcia, the
president and general manager of the government regulator.
The Special Ninth Division of the appellate
court on Friday, in a four-page resolution penned by Associate
Justice Vicente Roxas, issued a 60-day temporary restraining order
prohibiting the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the GSIS
and the state regulator’s officer-in-charge Enrique Garcia and its
compliance-and-enforcement director Huberto Garcia from implementing
a controversial SEC “cease-and-desist order.” The injunction was
issued on May 27, election day for the Meralco board, when Garcia
tried but failed to stop the voting through the SEC order.
The resolution said the cease-and-desist order
“is alleged to have been rendered moot and academic due to lack of
jurisdiction by the SEC.”
Two associate justices, Jose Sabio and Myrna
Dimaranan-Vidal, concurred with the ruling, which also set hearings
on the application for the issuance of a writ of preliminary
injunction on June 23 and June 24, both at 10 a.m.
The Court of Appeals stressed, though, that the
ruling does not ”necessarily give due course to the petition” of
Meralco against enforcement of the cease-and-desist order.
It ordered the respondents “to file a comment
(not a motion to dismiss) within ten days from notice and
petitioners are hereby directed to file reply within five days from
receipt of respondents’ comments.”
Both parties were also told to submit along with
their comment or reply their memorandum of authorities regarding the
petitioners’ application for the issuance of the writ of
preliminary injunction. The writ is to be considered submitted for
resolution 45 days from promulgation of Friday’s resolution.
Meralco’s top executives filed on Thursday a
55-page petition for certiorari and prohibition with prayer for
issuance of preliminary injunction and temporary restraining order.
The petition assailed the undated SEC
cease-and-desist order and the government regulator’s show-cause
order, both dated May 27, 2008. It claimed that the orders were
issued without or in excess of jurisdiction or with grave abuse of
discretion tantamount to lack of jurisdiction.
The SEC, in its show-cause order, had given
Meralco until May 30 to explain why it should not be declared in
contempt for ignoring the cease-and-desist order from the state
regulator to stop the counting of proxies in favor of the Lopez
Group during the power firm’s annual stockholders’ meeting last
Tuesday.
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