GSIS counsel claims signatures in Meralco ad forged

MANILA, Philippines - The word war between the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) and Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) continues. This was after GSIS chief legal counsel and spokesperson Estrella Elamparo claimed to have uncovered a possible case of forgery committed by certain Meralco officers regarding the signatures of its employees in a paid advertisement. In a statement released Wednesday, Elamparo said certain Meralco officers had forged the signatures of its employees in a paid advertisement published in various newspapers denouncing GSIS president Winston Garcia for his expose on the Lopez family's mismanagement of the power firm. "They cut the signatures of their employees from their timecards and paste them in the advertisement. If they were doing this, it is not unimaginable that they were also faking the signatures of the shareholders," she said. She added that if proven true, this would bolster the GSIS claim that the power distribution firm has been in dirty tricks to foil the GSIS bid to gain control of Meralco. On Tuesday, Garcia revealed that one week before Meralco's annual stockholders meeting, the Lopez-controlled management had continued to solicit proxies even after the deadline for getting votes lapsed last Saturday to reduce representatives of the government financial institutions on the Meralco board from four to three. The stockholders' meeting was set on May 27. Garcia said the Lopez management had refused to provide the GSIS with a list of all proxies in order to validate them and determine how many were obtained by the two warring sides. He said he was surprised that Meralco's acting corporate secretary, former Supreme Court Justice Jose Vitug, would deny the basic right of a director and shareholder of the company to get a peek at the proxies list. Garcia said that having one seat less than the GFIs' four of 11 board seats would give the Lopezes "full control of the Meralco. "We smell something fishy is about to happen in the stockholders' meeting," he said. Garcia was hoping that the GFIs would gain majority of the board with four directors voted into the board, assuming that with two independent directors would join the GFIs' side, that would make six out of the 11 votes in the boardroom. "If our rightful representations are cut down to three through the Lopezes' manipulation," he said. "We will be useless since we can only hope to get at most five votes with the two independent directors. Having four directors is really crucial to ensure consumer activism in the boardroom," he added Garcia said Meralco chair Manuel Lopez, his children and other relatives, continued to talk to brokers to get their proxies. - GMANews.TV