Supreme Court junks Morato plea to stop PCSO transfer

Manuel Morato. INQUIRER file photo

The Supreme Court has dismissed a petition seeking to stop the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) from transferring its headquarters to the Philippine International Convention Center (PICC) in Pasay City.

The court, in an August 31 resolution promulgated on September 9, rejected the plea of Manuel Morato, a former PCSO director, for the court to stop the PCSO board from pushing through with its plans to move the agency from the Quezon Institute compound.

The 3rd Division, chaired by Associate Justice Presbitero Velasco, said the board resolutions that Morato assailed “[appeared] to be in accord with the facts and applicable law and jurisprudence.”

Nor did it find any grave abuse of discretion, the court said.

The PCSO said it found out about the ruling last Tuesday. PCSO chairperson Margarita Juico said she was glad the issue has been settled by the court so the board can continue to focus on “more important things.”

“We knew it would not prosper because we knew what we did was right,” she said.

Juico said the PCSO board only followed the recommendation of the Department of Public Works and Highways, the Quezon City engineer’s office as well as a private consultancy that the agency immediately vacate the building it was occupying inside the Quezon Institute, owned by the Philippine Tuberculosis Society.

‘Followed what they said’

“If the DPWH said it had structural defects, then we just followed what they said,” she said.

The PCSO board decided to move after an assessment found that the Quezon Institute building that the agency was occupying had structural defects that could pose danger if Metro Manila should be hit by a powerful earthquake.

The prewar building, designed by National Artist for Architecture Juan Nakpil, is 72 years old and was already recommended for demolition by the public works department.

Petition on relocation

Morato filed the petition in October 2010 after Juico announced the agency’s relocation to the PICC.

Morato, a board director during the Ramos administration, argued that the transfer was unnecessary and a waste of public funds.