PAL gets CA green light to pursue suit vs pilots group

Philippine Airlines (PAL) has received the go-signal of the Court of Appeals (CA) to pursue its P730-million damage suit against the pilots’ group that staged a strike in 1998, forcing the flag carrier to temporarily close shop. In a 26-page decision penned by CA Associate Justice Ramon Cruz, the CA’s 13th Division modified the ruling of the National Labor Relations Commission (NLRC) dismissing PAL’s complaint for damages against the Airline Pilots Association of the Philippines (ALPAP) for lack and jurisdiction and prescription. The NLRC was correct in ruling that jurisdiction over PAL’s claim for damages belongs to the civil courts, the CA said. But it noted that the NLRC committed a grave abuse of discretion after ruling that PAL’s complaint for damages had already been prescribed due to its failure to file it within the three-year prescriptive period. In its ruling, the CA agreed with PAL’s contention that it could only file a complaint for damages arising from the ALPAP strike’s supposedly illegal nature after – not before – the finality of the Supreme Court’s decision declaring as illegal the ALPAP strike. Until the SC finally settled the issue pertaining to the strike’s legality, the filing of the suit for damages was considered a premature and “groundless" suit. “The Supreme Court decision resolving the illegality of the strike attained finality only on August 29, 2002. It was only then that private respondents’ act of abandoning their aircrafts had been declared illegal and hence, they could already be held culpable for causing injury to petitioner’s business, assuming such could be proven by the petitioner," the CA ruled. The ruling was concurred in by Associate Justices Jose Reyes Jr. and Antonio Villamor. Based on records, ALPAP officers and members went on strike on June 5, 1998, stopping the airline’s international and domestic operations. The company claimed ALPAP deliberately timed the strike to coincide with the peak season for air travels and summer vacation, as well as when thousands of migrant workers were set to travel to the Philippines for the country’s centennial independence celebration. PAL also claimed that on the strike’s second day, ALPAP pilots left their respective assigned aircrafts along with their passengers and cargo in Bangkok, Thailand, and San Francisco in the United States. The strike reportedly left passengers stranded, rendering PAL liable for violating its contract of carriage and forcing it to incur expenses in hotel accommodations, meals for passengers, airport parking fees, and other operational expenses. - PE/KBK, GMA News