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LAWYER
Rene Saguisag has urged the Supreme Court to subject
PhilComsat Holdings Corp. (PHC) president Manuel Nieto
Jr. to a medical examination to determine his mental
condition.
In an
eight-page urgent manifestation, Saguisag, counsel for
PHC lawyer Alma Kristina Alloba, said he is convinced
that Nieto did not replace Alloba as his counsel and
moved for the withdrawal of his petition before the SC
involving the leadership row between him and the group
of Victor Africa to the PhilComsat board.
Earlier,
Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez also vowed to resolve
the various controversies hounding the PhilComsat. He
has also summoned Presidential Commission on Good
Government officials to a meeting this week to discuss
issues involving the sequestered firm.
In his
manifestation, Saguisag theorized that the 91-year-old
Nieto may be suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease, a
serious mental condition that causes dementia.
His
mental condition was confirmed by Manuel Lazaro, the
lawyer claiming to have been hired by the former
ambassador to replace Alloba as his counsel, in his
pleadings before the Sandiganbayan.
“However, we need to bring to the attention of this
Honorable Court two filings of Atty. Manuel Lazaro in
the Sandiganbayan recently [dated August 1, 2007].
There, he said that the Ambassador [Nieto], at least for
the last couple of years, has no longer been able to
take care of and handle his affairs . . . that the
Ambassador is on a roughly two-year history of cognitive
decline,” Saguisag said.
He
explained that if Nieto has been on a decline for the
last two years at least, how could he retain a lawyer,
much less hire a new one and tell him to withdraw his
petition in the Supreme Court and manage his legal
affairs?
“So how
could the former retain any lawyer and tell him the
facts? How could the Ambassador implement the subject
resolution? If the Ambassador could now do so, then what
he said and did earlier should have the same, if not
more, weight and value,” Alloba told the Court.
A
court-sanctioned medical examination is crucial in the
proper disposition of the case, as this would establish
the validity of the petition to withdraw filed by Lazaro,
Saguisag said.
“Since
there is need to show that the Ambassador knowingly
moved to withdraw his petition, then it stands to reason
that Atty. Alobba may never have been validly relieved
of her obligations to act for him, and should be
commended for her zeal: she had just been doing her duty
and in her formal motion for reconsideration will expand
on this thought,” Saguisag stressed.
Alloba
had served as counsel for Nieto for the last several
years, but in November 2006, Lazaro, who claimed to have
the conformity of the former ambassador, notified the
Sandiganbayan that he was replacing her. Lazaro then
filed the petition before the Supreme Court withdrawing
the earlier pleading of Nieto asking the Court to uphold
his leadership claim over Philcomsat over that of Africa
and his group.
Alloba,
who questioned her substitution as counsel for Nieto,
opposed the withdrawal of the petition. But the SC ruled
that she could not validly seek opposition to the
petition because she had been replaced by Nieto as
counsel, and has no personal interest in the Philcomsat
controversy.
With the
junking of Alloba’s petition, the Court allowed the two
warring camps—the Nieto group and Africa group—to
amicably settle their differences involving the control
of Philippine Overseas Telecommunications Corporation (POTC),
Philippines Communications Satellite Corporation (Philcomsat)
and PHC. |
