A Manila judge has refused to inhibit himself from hearing a suit aimed at stopping the Big 3 oil companies from raising the prices of oil products.

Manila Judge Silvino Pampilo Jr. said the motion for inhibition filed separately by Petron Corp. and Pilipinas Shell Petgroleum Corp. failed to prove with substantial evidence the allegations of bias and partiality against him.

Pampilo is hearing a motion from the Social Justice Society (SJS) asking the court to stop the Big 3 oil companies—Petron, Pilipinas Shell and Chevron Phil.— from “further increasing the pump prices of their petroleum products.”

The oil firms responded by filing a motion seeking the judge’s voluntary inhibition, saying they had “lost faith and confidence” that there could be “a fair and impartial resolution” of the SJS suit because of the Pampilo’s “actuations, conduct and pronouncements.”

Serious doubts

They said they had serious doubts about Pampilo’s “integrity and fairness to dispense justice with the cold neutrality of a magistrate.”

They also questioned the jurisdiction of the court since “price adjustments are not illegal or prohibited unless in clear cases of monopoly, combinations in restraint of trade or cartelization.”

“Under the Oil Deregulation Law, the exclusive jurisdiction to investigate and determine these violations lies within the powers of the Department of Energy-Department of Justice (DoE-DoJ) Task Force and not with the trial court,” the oil companies said.

In his ruling rejecting the motion, Pampilo said the allegations against him by the oil companies were untrue and baseless.

Mere suspicion not enough

“It has already been established by jurisprudence that motion for inhibition must be grounded on just and valid causes,” the judge said.

Citing a Supreme Court ruling, he said that “for bias and prejudice to be considered valid reasons for the voluntary inhibition of judges, mere suspicion is not enough. Bare allegations of their partiality will not suffice in the absence of evidence.”

The judge said that to grant the motion for inhibition “would open the floodgates to a form of forum-shopping, in which litigants would be allowed to shop for a judge more sympathetic to their cause. Such action would be antithetical to the speedy and fair administration of justice.”

In a month’s time

The judge said he may resolve the issue of price manipulation in a month’s time.

“I already asked the parties involved to submit a formal offer of evidence. After that, the case is deemed submitted for resolution,” Pampilo said.

At the hearing of the SJS case Wednesday, Peter Lee U, the dean of the School of Economics of the University of Asia and the Pacific who testified in favor of the oil firms, was questioned mainly on the results of a study that the UA&P conducted with SGV & Co. in 2005 to 2007 on the pricing structures of the oil firms.

In a previous hearing, U told the court that the prices and profits of the oil firms were reasonable and that there was no proof of cartelization.