ILOILO City – Despite a standing gag order from the court, Panay Electric Co. (PECO) held a press conference in Manila denouncing the takeover of its power distribution assets by rival MORE Electric and Power Corp. (MORE Power).
“Nalilito kami ngayon (We are confused). We are not saying anything extraneous. Lahat narrated in our pleadings…(These allegations are a) matter of public record…We’re not trying to influence the court but correcting the matter,” said PECO lawyer Estrella Elamparo in a press conference at Ilustrado Restaurant in Intramuros, Manila on Tuesday.
On Monday, Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 23’s Judge Emerald Requina-Contreras warned MORE Power and PECO to “strictly observe the gag order” issued by Judge Daniel Antonio Gerardo Amular of RTC Branch 35 who previously heard their expropriation case.
“Definitely, it is not yet over. We are taking all the remedies that we could,” Elamparo said as she assailed MORE Power’s takeover of PECO’s substations on Feb. 28.
In her March 2 order, Contreras already called out Elamparo for “malicious statements on air, of an alleged meeting with the judge of a certain MORE personality the day before the writ was served, alluding to the court’s conspiracy with the plaintiff.”
In the Tuesday Manila press conference, the PECO legal counsel discussed the company’s supplemental petition to its existing request for the Court of Appeals (CA) to nullify three Iloilo court orders that paved the way for MORE Power’s alleged “forcible, deceptive and intimidating” takeover of its stations and facilities over the weekend.
PECO asked the CA to issue a temporary restraining order stopping the continued implementation of an Iloilo court-issued writ of possession, as well as a status quo ante order that would “restore” its possession of the substations and other properties that it claims were illegally seized by MORE.
In her Monday order, Contreras also warned MORE Power and PECO against resorting to “any form of propaganda” that would undermine the court’s integrity and credibility.
She also stressed she was “not dissuaded to further hear the case with utmost impartiality.”
Contreras was reacting to PECO’s statements issued in a Feb. 29 press conference and MORE Power’s coming out of advertisements about its operation following the takeover of PECO substations on Feb. 28.
“Because of the illegal, if not criminal manner, by which the takeover was accomplished, we will be filing criminal cases against all those responsible,” Elamparo said in the Feb. 29 press conference at PECO’s office on General Luna Street.
Even without a break-open order from the court, Elamparo said, court sheriffs together with MORE Power officials and a battalion of anti-riot policemen forced their way into the substations.
Such action, she added, continued Saturday (morning, Feb. 29), which was a non-business day, at the PECO substation in Molo district./PN
