Probe sought on repeated assignment of firm's case to same CA justice

THE lawyers of Steel Corporation of the Philippines on Friday asked Chief Justice Reynato Puno to call for an investigation into the suspicious assignment of their raffled case to the same justice of the Court of Appeals four times.

In a press conference, Atty. Ferdinand Topacio said they are seeking the Chief Justice's help and that of CA Presiding Justice Conrado Vasquez Jr. to take a closer look at the chronology of events where all Steel Corporation's litigation raffled off at the CA has ended up in Associate Justice Sixto Marella's court.

Steel Corporation, the country's top manufacturer of coated flat steel, has been asking the CA to stop the rehabilitation plan sought by one of its creditors, Banco de Oro-EPCIB, saying the move smacks of a takeover by the Henry Sy-led bank.

Topacio said Steel Corp. has already suffered an injustice before a special commercial court in Batangas City and the suspicious assignment and handling of its cases at the CA has made matters worse.

"We just want a fair dispensation of justice. I believe there are enough circumstances to reasonably assume that there is an anomaly. It is too coincidental that out of 52 justices of the CA, in the four times that it was raffled, the case would always go to Marella," he said.

Topacio pointed out that Marella had either denied all their motions or delayed the resolution of the cases as well as motions to inhibit the magistrate from the case.

"(We) urge the Chief Justice to take a closer look at the case, consistent with your crusade to cleanse the judiciary of bad elements in order to strengthen the faith and confidence of the general public on the judicial system. It is our firm belief that influential and powerful forces that could have shamelessly and without compunction been made to bear on the lower court and even the CA in seeming disregard of the pertinent laws," said the letter to Puno signed by Steel Corp.'s executive vice president Antonio Lorenzana.

In a separate letter to Vasquez in January 2007, Topacio said there seemed to be a "deliberate attempt" to direct all cases regarding the rehabilitation of the firm to the chambers of Marella so that he may decide on the different matters pertaining to the rehabilitation.

Vasquez, in his reply to the letter, said he was sympathetic and that he "cannot blame (Steel Corp.) from entertaining apprehensions about them due to some peculiar events that happened." He suggested that Steel Corp. file the proper motion for inhibition addressed to Marella and state the facts and reasons for entertaining suspicion and fear that impartial justice might not be realized.

When the case was raffled on March 5, 2007 and assigned to Justice Lucas Bersamin of the Fifth Division, the latter recused himself immediately. The case was re-raffled a week later to another division with Justice Marina Buzon as ponente, who acted after the lapse of two months and then issued an order denying the TRO. After denying the TRO, Buzon unloaded the case on May 31,2007.

In the first week of June 2007, the same case was re-raffled for the third time and ended at Marella's court. Last January, another case was filed in the CA and it again landed in Marella's division.

Because of his inaction on the firm's motion for TRO, lawyers then filed a motion for Marella to inhibit himself from the case, but he has yet to resolve even that motion.

Topacio said Marella took no action on the incidents accompanying the petition until he issued an order dated Dec. 10, 2007 after the Batangas RTC had already decided the main case.

In a 50-page petition for review, Steel Corp. asked the CA to set aside the decision of the Batangas City regional trial court placing the firm under rehabilitation. It accused BDO-EPCIB of seeking the firm's rehabilitation as a ploy to take over its management.