Court of Appeals Presiding Justice, Conrado Vasquez, Jr., who will be leading an en banc meeting on July 31 to investigate a complaint on the handling of a corporate case, has already made a stand on the ongoing rift among the appellate justices.

In his July 24 letter to Justices Bienvenido Reyes and Vicente Roxas, who issued a decision favoring the Lopez-led Meralco board the day before, he basically favored Justice Jose Sabio, Jr., who led the 8th division, which originally heard the case.

Vasquez wrote that two members of their newly reconstituted 8th division are not very familiar with the case. We obtained a copy of the letter.

Sabio’s formal complaint triggered Vasquez to call the en banc meeting.

Vasquez earlier gave Sabio a verbal go-signal to proceed in hearing the June 23 oral argument between the two warring major shareholders of Manila Electric Co (Meralco)--the Lopez family and the government, led by the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS).

In his letter, he again reiterated that Sabio’s 9th division, since it issued a temporary restraining order (TRO), and its members heard and participated in the June 23 hearing, should “sign and resolve” the case.

“To allow the new division of Justice B.L. Reyes as Chairman, Justice Roxas, as ponente, and Justice Bruselas, Jr. as the third member, the resolution of the pending incidents in the case will be participated by two (2) members who were not present and did not hear the arguments during the hearing on the injunctive relief…”

Vasquez’s relatives

The decision that both justices, Roxas and Reyes, issued last July 23 did not favor GSIS, which we learned happens to currently employ at least two of Vasquez’s daughters, namely Maria Ruth Almira and Ma. Agnes Rosario.

abs-cbnnews.com/Newsbreak called the GSIS office and confirmed that Almira currently works at the GSIS corporate secretary's office but is on leave. Agnes, on the other hand, is with the dental office of the medical department.

We called the office of Vasquez to get his side but he was unavailable for comment.

We consulted a lawyer who is familiar with the Meralco-GSIS case and he said that the CA en banc meeting is not going to discuss the merits of the case, thus the issue of Vasquez’s daughters being employed in GSIS is not relevant. 

Rift among justices

This new twist in the ongoing Meralco legal battle further clouds perceptions on how the magistrates are handling the corporate case.

The Lopez-led Meralco board already scored a win when the 8th division of the appellate court handed down a decision last July 24.

But Sabio said in a previous interview with abs-cbnnews.com that his complaint focuses on the process by which the decision came about. He and another colleague in the 9th division previously issued a TRO that favored the Lopez-led board in May and heard the oral arguments in June.

Both justices, however, were eased out when the case's ponente, or the designated writer of the decision, was transferred to the 8th division, which eventually issued a decision that favored the Lopez-led board.

Simeon Marcelo, the lawyer of Meralco's Lopez-led board, earlier said there is nothing irregular about the transfer of the case to the 8th division since it was in accordance to the internal rules of the appellate court.

Sabio, however, said something was "fishy" since he was offered a P10-million bribe to let go of the case.

The Meralco case has pitted the appellate justices against each other, and Vasquez is set to head the investigation that Sabio asked for. -- with reports from Purple Romero, abs-cbnnews.com/Newsbreak and Judith Balea, abs-cbnnews.com (abs-cbnNEWS.com/Newsbreak)

Disclosure: Meralco is a subsidiary of ABS-CBN, the parent company of this Web site.

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