LTO to DOJ: Terminate probe into Stradcom takeover

The Land Transportation Office has asked a Department of Justice panel to end its inquiry into the takeover of the Stradcom facility in Quezon City last December. Stradcom, the LTO's information technology service provider, is the subject of a corporate war between the groups of businessmen Cezar Quiambao and Bonifacio Sumbilla. In a letter sent to the DOJ last Thursday, LTO head Virginia Torres asked the panel to terminate its proceedings. "In the absence of any court order or resolution giving the Quiambao group absolute right to exercise the corporate powers of Stradcom, it is respectfully submitted that the Honorable Fact-Finding Committee cannot validly and legally recognize the Quiambao group as the legitimate representative of Stradcom and that the entire proceedings being conducted by the Honorable Fact-Fiding Committee be now terminated," said the LTO chief. Torres then said that her office will no longer participate in the DOJ panel's proceedings scheduled on Friday, Jan. 28. "On this premise and with all due respect to the Honorable Fact Finding Committee, this Office is serving notice that it, together with the other LTO and security personnel, will no longer be attending the hearing scheduled on 28 January 2011," she said. Dec. 9 takeover The DOJ panel is looking into the takeover of the Stradcom office on Dec. 9 last year. Armed men linked to the Sumbilla group took over the facility, resulting in the paralysis of LTO operations for hours. The armed men supposedly refused to let Stradcom technicians handling the LTO’s computerized database enter the area and do their work. Sumbilla's group had presented itself as the newly-elected board of directors of Stradcom. Sumbilla said that a certified true copy of Stradcom's General Information Sheet from the Securities and Exchange Commission named him and his supporters as Stradcom's new board of directors and officers. The GIS he presented was dated Dec. 1, 2010. However, Quiambao's group also presented a different GIS naming them as Stradcom's board of directors. But the information sheet was dated May 31, 2010, seven months older than the document Sumbilla presented. QC court's resolution In a resolution last Jan. 18, 2011, the Quezon City Regional Trial Court Branch 91 said that neither the Quiambao group nor the Sumbilla group can claim ownership of Stradcom, pending the resolution of its corporate war. "In the case at bar, it appears that there is a dispute as to whom the corporate power of Stradcom belongs. During the hearing of the case, it was reported that there are two sets of General Information Sheets submitted to the SEC by the contending Sumbilla and Quiambao group. It is therefore, unclear, which group has the authority and control over the Stradcom," said the court. It further said: "As correctly pointed out by the Office of the Solicitor General [the LTO's lawyer] in its Opposition, pending resolution of the intra-corporate dispute, neither Quiambao nor Sumbilla, nor their respective boards can claim the absolute authority to exercise the corporate powers of Stradcom." In her letter to the DOJ panel on Thursday, Torres cited the Quezon City court's "judicial determination" and said in the absence of a court ruling granting the Quiambao group the right to run Stradcom, the corporate dispute must first be resolved and the DOJ must terminate its investigative proceedings. Torres' alleged bias Torres herself was mired in the controversy after Quiambao's group accused her of favoring Sumbilla's group and of knowing about the takeover of the Stradcom office located inside the LTO compound. This was because Torres and her aide, Menelia Mortel, were supposedly caught on Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) entering the Stradcom building with Sumbilla and businessman Aderito Yujuico. Last week, Torres told the DOJ panel that she did not favor the Sumbilla group, adding that the allegations against her were merely "colorful stories conjured by malicious minds." She added she was merely a victim in a crossfire between "wrangling businessmen" vying for Stradcom's P12-billion profit from LTO and other companies. "Two opposing groups of businessmen are fighting over control of Stradcom, the sole IT service provider of the LTO. They are fighting over control of a multi-billion peso company that has monopoly over LTO services for the past 12 years," said Torres. — LBG/JE, GMANews.TV