A Quezon City court has upheld the Land Transportation Office’s (LTO) move to bring the warring stockholders of Stradcom Corp. to court to compel them to litigate their claim for the ownership of the company in order to determine where the LTO’s payments to Stradcom should go.
However, Judge Edgar Dalmacio Santos, in an order dated June 21, also ordered the LTO to deposit the money owed Stradcom, the LTO’s information technology provider, with the court for safekeeping.
The money, about P1.2 billion, which is being fought over by two rival claimants to Stradcom, is now deposited in an escrow account at the Land Bank of the Phil.
The two rival groups of Stradcom stockholders are led by Cezar Quiambao, Stradcom president and CEO, and Bonifacio Sumbilla. The dispute came to a head last year when the Sumbilla group forcibly took over the Stradcom offices in the LTO compound in Quezon City, disrupting LTO operations nationwide for several hours.
As a result, LTO Chief Virginia Torres refused to make payments to Stradcom until the ownership dispute was resolved.
After she was threatened with lawsuits by the stockholders, Torres through the Office of the Solicitor General filed an interpleader suit with the court against the rival claimants to compel them to litigate their claims against each other.
The June 21 decision was in response to the Quiambao group’s motion asking the court to dismiss Torres’ interpleader suit. The motion was dismissed for lack of merit.
Santos ruled that the rival claimants to Stradcom should first settle the dispute among themselves first before seeking any payment from the LTO. He said their counter-claims against each other needed to go into a full-blown trial.
The court ordered the LTO through Torres to amend its original complaint and strike out the appeal for a temporary restraining order or preliminary injunction.
It also directed both Stradcom claimants to file their answer to the amended interpleader suit, in which both parties will be compelled to argue their claim over the IT firm, within 15 days from receipt.
The court rejected the Quiambao group’s claim that the LTO had no authority to sue on behalf of the Republic of the Philippines; that the interpleader complaint failed to state a cause of action; that the court was the wrong venue; that LTO was liable for forum shopping; and that Torres had recognized Quiambao as the owner of the IT firm.
The court said Torres was “exercising her proprietary functions” and that her official acts were “clothed with the presumption of regularity”.
It said Torres and her office have no interest in the amount in question considering her manifestation to deposit the funds with the court. That was a “sign of good faith” on the part of the LTO, the court said. Paolo G. Montecillo and Julie M. Aurelio