SC: No pressure, bias in 'recall order' on PAL case

The Supreme Court (SC) on Tuesday denied it was "pressured" by Philippine Airlines (PAL) and its lawyer Estelito Mendoza into recalling a September ruling that favored former PAL flight attendants who were fired from their jobs in 1998. Court administrator and spokesperson Midas Marquez said the high court decided to recall the decision simply because the "technicalities" that Mendoza pointed out in a letter he sent the SC were "material." "I don't think the justices could be pressured by a mere letter from a lawyer," Marquez told reporters during a briefing inside the SC building in Manila. Hours before Marquez faced the media, about 50 FASAP (Flight Attendants and Stewards Association of the Philippines) members staged a rally outside the SC in protest of the high court's recall. The group's spokesman, Ding Dreyfus, blamed Mendoza and the PAL lawyer's letter for the court's sudden turn-around. But Marquez insisted that neither Mendoza nor the Lucio Tan-owned airline company had influenced the magistrates in deciding to review the case anew. "There were no influences in the court's action to take cognizance in this case," he said.

Currently the second richest Filipino businessman in the country, Tan — whose networth was pegged at $2.3 billion — also owns several other companies including Fortune Tobacco, Asia Brewery, and the Philippine National Bank. The recall order came barely a week after the high court ruled in favor of Tan in another case, when it ordered the Bureau of Internal Revenue to return P491 million in tax refund to the business mogul's Fortune Tobacco Corp. Marquez said the court has never been biased for or against any of the parties to the case, saying it was merely trying to nip the problem in the bud and remedy what could be possible "missapplication of court rules" encountered during the course of the case. "It was a difficult decision but it has to be done. It's good that this was brought to the attention of the Supreme Court at this early stage," he said. "The court only acted swiftly to rectify what errors or misapplications might have been done," Marquez added. Nothing wrong with Mendoza letter At the same briefing, Marquez said there was nothing irregular in Mendoza writing the Supreme Court, adding there had been instances in the past when the SC accomodated letters from individuals and "acting on them." Mendoza's letter was addressed to the clerk of court and was eventually forwarded to the en banc. "It [Writing a letter to the court] is not unusual. This was not the first time that the court entertained a letter and it will not be the last," Marquez said. FASAP has already appealed to the Supreme Court to make public the contents of Mendoza's letter, but Marquez advised the group to just file a motion with the court to be furnished a copy of the letter. Marquez said he he himself does not have a copy of the PAL lawyer's letter. The case was originally decided upon by Justice Consuelo Ynares-Santiago of the court's Third Division in July 2008. However, the case eventually found its way to the Second Division by the time PAL's second motion for reconsideration was deliberated upon. Marquez said the "mix-up" was due to the "numerous retirements" in the Third Division and the Special Third Division, which was supposed to take over the handling of the case from Ynares-Santiago after she retired in 2009. This "technicalities" in the handling of the case, which Mendoza allegedly pointed out in his letter, were the basis for the court to review the case with its full membership on board. Marquez said Mendoza was only "doing his homework" when he wrote to the SC to point out such technicalities. Marquez appealed to the public not to misconstrue the court's decision for a review as being in favor of the ariline company. "If they [the justices] were in favor of PAL, this should have been decided in 2008 already... The lawyer was just doing his homework. Kung takot ang Supreme Court sa kung sinong abugado dapat nung 2008 pa lang, tapos na iyang kaso," he said. Case prioritized Marquez appealed to both parties to just await the resolution of the en banc, which has already raffled off the review of the case to a justice on Monday. Marquez refused to identify the justice. Until the en banc has decided the matter, Marquez said he would rather not "second guess or pre-empt" the resolution of the issue. The court spokesman, however, assured FASAP that the review of the 13-year-old case would be "prioritized." Four justices have so far inhibited themselves fro participating in the case namely, Antonio Carpio, Presbitero Velasco Jr, Teresita Leonardo-De Castro, and Justice del Castillo. Marquez said that if the flight attendants' group really want to ensure that the case is resolved immediately, the group has the option of filing a motion for early resolution by the en banc. But for FASAP's Dreyfus, he said his group is still undecided if they would file such a motion, since they are still studying all their legal options in light of the sudden recall of the September ruling. The two-page recall order basically took back the tribunal's original ruling ordering PAL owner Tan to pay FASAP P3 billion and reinstate the workers. FASAP's complaint stemmed from the retrenchment of some 5,000 employees - 1,400 of whom were flight attendants - in June 1998 in an apparent attempt at downsizing the firm's operations to counter the effects of that time's Asian financial crisis. — RSJ, GMA News