PIATCO asks SC to suspend, dismiss Pasay judge

The builder of Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) Terminal 3 has filed a case before the Supreme Court seeking to suspend and dismiss a Pasay City judge who ruled on the company’s case in May. In a complaint, the Philippine International Air Terminals Co. Inc. (PIATCO) charged Pasay City Regional Trial Court Judge Eugenio dela Cruz with gross ignorance and disregard of the rules of court when he promulgated a decision allegedly without giving PIATCO, the complainant, an opportunity to file its comments or objections to a final report by the Supreme Court-appointed Board of Commissioners. Dela Cruz is the presiding judge of Pasay RTC Branch 117 who promulgated a decision in May awarding PIATCO $176 million or roughly P7.6 billion as “just compensation." PIATCO has sought a reversal of this ruling that gave the company only one-fifth of what it wanted. GMA News Online tried but was unable to reach the person authorized to speak in behalf of Dela Cruz – Branch 117 clerk of court Luithe Cabangunay – whom a staff member said was in a meeting as of this posting. PIATCO said Dela Cruz ignored a requirement of the Rules of Court that PIATCO, in this case, be provided with a copy of the final report by the Board of Commissioners stating the amount that the government should pay PIATCO. “When the inefficiency springs from a failure to consider a basic and elementary rule, a law or principle in the discharge of his duties, a judge is either too incompetent and undeserving of the position, and the title he holds or is too vicious that the oversight or omission was deliberately done in bad faith and in grave abuse of authority," PIATCO said in its complaint. — PE/VS, GMA News