Justice Bienvenido Reyes’s return to the ongoing investigation on the alleged irregularities in the Court of Appeals brought up a missing significant episode in the crafting of the decision on the case between Meralco and the Government Service Insurance System. He told the investigating panel today that the Eighth Division, which he chairs, never held previous deliberations on the run-up to the promulgation of the July 23 decision.

Reyes, along with Justice Apolinario Bruselas and the ponente Justice Vicente Roxas promulgated a decision on July 23 where they ruled that the regional trial court, and not the Securities and Exchange Commission, has authority over the intra-corporate dispute between Meralco and the GSIS.

He admitted, however, that as “practiced” in the appellate court, justices do not hold deliberations anymore before they sign the ponencia.

“The ponente just gives a copy of the decision to the other members of the division. If they agree with the decision, they just sign the ponencia,” Reyes said. “The ponete really is the captain ball.”

During his cross-examination, Reyes, who just came back to the hearing after being hospitalized due to a heart ailment, said that the Eighth Division did not conduct deliberations on the above case, describing his meeting with Justices Bruselas and Roxas on July 14 as an “initial talk.”

What transcript?
The “initial talk” on July 14, however, has been recorded as “final deliberations” in a transcript prepared by Roxas.

In the said transcript, the justices discussed the merits of the case, including the forum-shopping that the GSIS lawyers did. The justices decried the decision of the GSIS lawyers to seek a TRO both from the Pasay regional trial court and from SEC.

Reyes, however, refuted the contents of the said transcript and stressed that he did not authorize Roxas to take down notes on the said “deliberation.”

“It will be the first time that I will see that transcript,” he said, pointing to a copy of the transcript which retired Justice Romeo Callejo, a member of the investigating panel, held up to show to him.

“I have no signature on that transcript,” Reyes added.

Callejo said the possibility that the transcript is false “is dangerous,” because the transcript has been stitched to the rollo and is therefore considered a public document already.

He also assailed the changing reference to the said transcript. “Justice Roxas said it is a transcript. Then he said that it was only a summary of the points you talked about on July 14. Then you say that it is only an impression of your meeting. Which is which?”

Consultation vs deliberation
Callejo also chided Reyes for sitting on the case. Roxas signed the decision on July 14, while Bruselas allegedly signed it on July 17. Reyes only rendered his signature on the said decision on July 23.

“Why did you vacillate?” Callejo asked.

Reyes responded that he still had to study the case. He added that he was also convinced of the ponencia after he consulted Bruselas in the morning of July 23.

Retired Justice Carolino Griño-Aquino, chair of the investigating panel, then asked Reyes to clarify the difference between a deliberation and a consultation, as the Internal Rules of the Court of Appeals use it interchangeably.

Aquino also pointed out that both consultation and deliberation precedes the signing of a decision.

Reyes explained that a consultation does not necessitate a “personal” meeting, while a deliberation refers to a face-to-face conversation between justices.

Inhibit
Meanwhile, Justice Jose Sabio Jr. contested Reyes’s claim that the Meralco counsels only filed an urgent motion for him (Reyes) to assume the chairmanship on July 10.

The Villaraza Cruz Marcelo Angangco law office, more popularly known as The Firm, which represents the Lopez-owned power utility, filed the motion following the return of Reyes from leave. Reyes said he took a leave from June 29-July 4 for a free trip to Sydney, Australia, which he won from a golf tournament in January 2008.

Reyes is the designated chairman of the Special Ninth division, to which the Meralco-GSIS case was raffled. During his absence, however, Sabio served as the division’s acting chairman.

Sabio said that he received a copy of the said motion as early as July 7. “They were only changing the date because he wanted to cover his (Reyes’s) tracks,” he said.

The current chair of the Sixth Division also accused Reyes of negating their previous meetings from his statement. Sabio said that Reyes did not state that before they met on July 15 where they discussed the chairmanship row, they also encountered each other already at two previous incidents: at a burial of a fellow justice’s daughter and at a meeting on another case of leakage in the appellate court.

Sabio said that Reyes did not bother to talk to him about his concerns on his continued chairmanship of the special ninth division during these occasions.

Reyes countered him and said that he did not relinquish the rollo of the case to him even after his return. He added that Meralco’s motion for him to immediately assume chairmanship was only filed on July 10.

Callejo, reacting to the contrasting statements, said that “We now have pleadings walking by themselves.”

Sabio said that his apprehension to leave the chairmanship to Reyes stemmed from the P10 million-bribe that alleged Meralco emissary Francis Roa de Borja purportedly offered him on July 1.

After he turned down the offer, he explained that he became suspicious of Meralco’s sudden move to have him removed from the said case.

At that rate, however, Callejo said that both Reyes and Sabio should have let go of the case.

“Both of you should have inhibited,” he said.

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