Uh oh, there is trouble in the Supreme Court. Definitely.
Now it seems that certain justices are turning their attention to the Hacienda Luisita case. Reports said at least eight justices already voted to direct the owners of Hacienda Luisita to distribute the land to the farmers. This was a clear signal to the Aquino (Part II) administration.
The Luisita sugar plantation happens to belong to the family of our leader Benigno Simeon (a.k.a. BS), on the Cojuangco side, meaning, on his mother side, the late former President Corazon Aquino.
It seems, at least to our contacts in business, this is payback time for a group of Supreme Court justices. In effect, this group lost in the skirmish with the administration over the case of former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.
Down here in my barangay, we know such a legal payback simply as vendetta. It does not augur well for the reputation of the high court, the ultimate arbiter in any dispute in the land, hoarder of all those multibillion peso court cases involving business.
As we all know, except perhaps some action stars in the Senate, the administration and the Supreme Court came to blows last week over the case of the former first couple.
The TRO issued by Supreme Court against the Department of Justice—which, in effect, allowed the Arroyos to leave the country—created quite a stir in media. The Arroyos did not waste time taking advantage of the TRO.
Eventually, the Supreme Court relented, saying the TRO was not yet in effect, because the lawyer of the Arroyo couple did not comply with all the conditions set by the Supreme Court.
Down here, we take it that the group of Supreme Court justices who voted in favor of the TRO issuance lost in the round one of the ongoing bout with the administration. Thus, it’s payback time.
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To think, the Arroyo camp even filed a contempt case against Justice Secretary Leila de Lima for ordering airport authorities to prevent the Arroyo couple from leaving the country, accusing her of defying the TRO issued by the Supreme Court.
Immediately after the Supreme Court met en banc last Friday, rumors already flew on the Internet that the Arroyo camp failed to comply with the conditions imposed by the high court for the TRO issuance. It meant the TRO was useless. How could De Lima be in contempt of court?
It turned out that, according to Justice Ma. Lourdes Sereno, the Supreme Court en banc voted six times on that day regarding the TRO. The first one upheld the issuance of the TRO. In the second voting, the Supreme Court en banc affirmed that the Arroyo camp failed to comply with the conditions of the TRO.
It seems that the Supreme Court had set three conditions for the TRO, namely, that the Arroyos put up a P2-billion bond, that they report to the Philippine consulate office in wherever they would be abroad and that they issue a special power of attorney to whoever they choose to receive for them such things as court summons and other legal documents. The Arroyo camp did not do all three.
But then in a press briefing Supreme Court spokesman Midas Marquez announced only that the Supreme Court en banc voted to uphold the TRO issuance, even saying that the TRO was “immediately executory”—whatever it meant.
In other words, the Aquino (Part II) administration was defying the Supreme Court. It was war between the executive and the judicial branches.
It was also reported, supposedly based on the press briefing, that the Supreme Court ordered De Lima to answer within 10 days why she should not be held in contempt for defying the TRO.
Here are the words of Sereno on Marquez: “The court administrator cum acting chief of the Public Information Office is hereby advised to be careful not to go beyond his role in such offices and that he has no authority to interpret any of our judicial issuances, including the present resolution, a function he never had from the beginning.”
In business, nevertheless, they have known that things like those happen in the judiciary all along.
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Because of the relentless media attacks against increases in pump prices of fuel, members of Congress somehow feel they must amend the Oil Deregulation Law.
In fact, the Congressional Planning and Budget Department already submitted a report on the law, suggesting that the amendments should improve “price monitoring.”
For instance, the law may require oil companies to submit their books of accounts and other financial documents to the government price monitoring team, made up of the Department of Energy (DoE), the Department of Justice (DoJ), and (this is the addition) the Commission on Audit.
Implication: the DoE and the DoJ are not doing their jobs in monitoring fuel prices.
Now the CPBD also noted the problem of fuel smuggling. According to the Philippine Institute of Petroleum, the government foregoes at least P31 billion in revenue from fuel importation every year.
That means we really import a lot of fuel, amounting to hundreds of billions of pesos every year. Smuggled fuel accounts for a big portion of the supply. This creates an imbalance.
The CPBD said the law must impose stiffer penalties for fuel smuggling, such as the outright cancelation of business permits of the smuggling oil companies. The report did not say anything on government policies such as taxation.
It is widely known in business that the main reason for the massive smuggling of fuel is the 12-percent VAT, something that the original Oil Deregulation Law could not anticipate.
Fuel importation has almost zero tariff and duties. The smugglers actually try to avoid payment of the 12-percent VAT. In effect, they have a 12-percent margin to play around with, when they set their pump prices.
In effect, it creates a price distortion in the market. What do the straight players do then to compete against the smugglers? They simply do benchmarking to set their prices. They do not actually base the retail price on their costs.
Somehow the law must address such a fact.