Lopez firm wants TMEE reinstated as defendant

Lopez-owned First Philippine Holdings Corp. (FPHC) wants the Sandiganbayan's Fifth Division to recall its resolution on January 11 dropping Trans Middle East (Phils.) Equities Inc. or TMEE as a defendant in Civil Case No. 0035. The Sandiganbayan junked the government’s case against TMEE for lack of valid cause of action when the Presidential Commission on Good Government filed a lawsuit against it in 1987. FPHC, the government and TMEE are locked in a three-way dispute over P3.5 billion worth of shares of the Philippine International Commercial Bank (PCI Bank). PCI Bank and Equitable Bank agreed to consolidate assets in 1999 to form Equitable-PCI Bank, which in turn merged with Banco de Oro in 2007 to become the country’s biggest bank. The family of former Ambassador Benjamin ‘Kokoy’ Romualdez, brother-in-law of the late President Ferdinand Marcos, owns TMEE. Romualdez used his affinity to Marcos in taking over private businesses, using threats and intimidation, FPHC and the government lawyers alleged. But the anti-graft court said in the January ruling that the PCGG failed to include TMEE in the list of assets the government wants forfeited despite having made four amendments to its original complaint after two decades of litigations. It pointed out that PCGG admitted the PCI Bank shares were acquired with a P47.24-million loan taken by Southern Leyte Oil Mills Inc. on behalf of TMEE in 1984. Allegations that public funds were involved were belied, as the loan was drawn from PCI Bank and from the Philippine Commercial Capital Inc. (PCCI) - both private financial institutions, the court said. FPHC’s claim over the PCI Bank (Banco de Oro) shares was twice junked by the Sandiganbayan. In a resolution on February 22, 2007 and another on September 6, 2007, the graft court favored TMEE’s motion to dismiss the FPHC intervention and declared that the Lopez-controlled firm filed its action seven months past the four-year rule under Article 1391 of the Civil Code. The Supreme Court’s Third Division affirmed the rulings in a resolution on December 4, 2009. But FPHC lawyers Barbara Anne C. Migallos, Troy A. Luna and Maria Monica L. Jimenez argued that the Sandiganbayan could not release all assets of TMEE from court custody, as FPHC already has a second motion for reconsideration pending before the Supreme Court. “This case is not an ordinary civil case. The property sought to be recovered by both First Holdings and the Republic in this case is worth billions of pesos. Recovery of this ill-gotten wealth from the hands of TMEE which has acted as front for defendant Benjamin ‘Kokoy’ Romualdez, is an essential part of the country’s efforts to repair the damage caused by the corruption and abuse of the Marcos regime," the lawyers said. —SVD, GMANews.TV