The celebrated cases of the Quisumbings of Cebu involving some P900 million in damages, claims and inheritances may now have to go through the full route after Wesy B. Quisumbing, who is largely credited for rehabilitating the ailing Norkis-Summa Group of Companies starting in the 1980s but was later disowned by her parents allegedly for “exercising” her femininity, decided to withdraw from the mediation proceedings.

Wesy (formerly known as Norberto Wenceslao Jesus B. Quisumbing III and/or Wessie B. Quisumbing) has asked a Cebu City court through her counsel Paris G. Real of the Real, Brotarlo & Real Law Offices to order the resumption of hearings for the cases she filed after it became apparent to her that the respondents are “not sincere” in their offer to reach a compromise through settlement.

Wesy has filed 18 interrelated cases against the Norkis Distributors Inc., Exquisite Pawnshop and Jewelry Inc., Norkis Group Management Systems, Inc., Norkis Trading Inc., her parents Norberto B. Quisumbing Jr. and Britta B. Quisumbing, the chairman and vice chairman of the Norkis-Summa Group of Companies, respectively, and other officers and persons employed by the respondents.

Among the cases she filed are illegal removal as president and chief executive officer of the said companies and the annulment of the fictitious transfers of her shares of stocks in these firms now pending at the sala of Judge Ramon Daomilas Jr. of the Cebu City Regional Trial Court Branch 11.

In the manifestation and motion she filed on May 25 at the sala of Judge Daomilas, Wesy noted that it was the counsel of the respondents who broached the idea of amicable settlement.

So in an order dated November  6, 2006, Daomilas directed the parties to negotiate a possible compromise agreement among themselves and then appear before the court for a chamber conference on January 11, 2007, for the court to be informed and at the same time evaluate the status of the settlement.

The date was subsequently reset to January 18 although only Wesy, who believes that her removal from the family-owned group of companies in 2002 was due to her parent’s disapproval of her sex change and subsequent marriage, attended the meeting.

Wesy said she was actually willing to “forgive and forget” then the “injustices” she suffered in the hands of the respondents and how she was disowned and was never treated fairly since childhood.

Up to this time, Wesy said the respondents have not presented their written offers for compromise as directed by the court.

“Let it be placed on record that, on the basis of the offer of reconciliation of the respondents, the petitioner is willing to compromise with them on reasonable and just terms. However, petitioner feels that such offer of settlement is not really sincere but is a way on the part of the respondents to delay the proceedings and stifle the resolution of her legitimate cases on the merits,” the motion said.

Wesy led and rehabilitated the debt-ridden Norkis-Summa Group of Companies in the 1980s until she was allegedly booted out of the firm in October 2002.

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The celebrated cases of the Quisumbings of Cebu involving some P900 million in damages, claims and inheritances may now have to go through the full route after Wesy B. Quisumbing, who is largely credited for rehabilitating the ailing Norkis-Summa Group of Companies starting in the 1980s but was later disowned by her parents allegedly for “exercising” her femininity, decided to withdraw from the mediation proceedings.