The Supreme Court recently dismissed an administrative complaint for gross ignorance of the law and obvious partiality against a Court of Appeals (CA) justice hearing the management ownership disputes at the Philippine Holdings Corporation (PHC).

In a nine-page decision penned by Justice Presbitero J. Velasco, Jr., the Court En Banc dismissed for lack of merit the complaint against Justice Vicente Q. Roxas.

Complainant Erlinda Bildner, president of Philippine Communications Satellite Corporation (PHILCOMSAT) which owns 81% of PHC, filed the complaint after Justice Roxas had ordered the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to desist from calling a stockholders’ meeting for PHC, despite a memorandum of understanding from all major stockholders that such could already proceed. The order was issued shortly after Manuel Nieto, Jr., hold-over president of PHC, petitioned the CA for a temporary restraining order (TRO) alleging that the SEC has no jurisdiction over intra-corporate matters. When Nieto filed a Motion to Withdraw the Petition, Justice Roxas denied the same. In her complaint, Bildner argued that Justice Roxas should have granted Nieto’s motion since it had superseded his petition.

The Court held that the decision to grant or deny the motion to withdraw is discretionary on the part of the judge. It further held that the case filed by Nieto involves an error in jurisdiction as RA 8799 (Securities Regulation Code)already conferred on regular courts the adjudicative functions once enjoyed by SEC. As such, the issue of jurisdiction needed to be passed upon by the CA which Justice Roxas had ruled upon in his decision, the Court said.

The Court disagreed with Bildner’s contention that the PHC controversy on its annual elections would have been resolved had the CA granted the motion to withdraw the petition because the parties would still have to contend with the SEC’s lack of jurisdiction over the controversy. (AM OCA IPI No. 07-108-CA-J, Bildner v. Roxas, June 12, 2008)