The Court of Appeals (CA) has denied the plea of three big Northern Luzon bus operators for a temporary restraining order on the decision of the Land Transportation and Franchising Board (LTFRB) paving the way for the sale of the bus franchises of the defunct Pantranco North Express Inc. (PNEI) to other bus companies.
In a three-page resolution promulgated on June 28, 2012, the CA’s Eighth Division said it found “no merit” in the plea of Philippine Rabbit Bus Lines Inc., Genesis Transport Service Inc., and Pangasinan Solid North Transit Inc. for the “immediate issuance of a Temporary Restraining Order and/or Writ of Preliminary Injunction” against LTFRB.
The three bus firms had wanted the appellate court to nullify and set aside the May 21, 2012 decisions of the LTFRB that affirmed the public auction of Pantranco’s bus franchises to its dismissed workers to answer for labor claims, and their subsequent sale to competitors of Philippine Rabbit, Genesis and Pangasinan Solid North.
“In the case at bar, there is no showing that the matter is of extreme urgency and that petitioners (Philippine Rabbit, Genesis and Pangasinan Solid North) will suffer grave injustice or sustain injury beyond possibility of repair or beyond possible compensation in damages. Wherefore, petitioners’ application for the issuance of a Temporary Restraining Order and/or Writ of Preliminary Injunction is hereby denied,” the appellate court said.
Meantime, over 2,000 former employees of the defunct Pantranco North Express Inc., once among the country’s biggest bus companies, thanked the CA for its quick action on the case.
In a statement, members of the Pantranco Retrenched Employees Association (PANREA) and the Pantranco Employees Association (PEA) said the petition of Philippine Rabbit, Genesis, and Pangasinan Solid North truly lacked merit as the LTFRB was correct in respecting the decisions of the National Labor Relations Commission, the CA, and the Supreme Court affirming the workers’ money claims against Pantranco.
PANREA and PEA insisted that the Certificates of Public Convenience or CPCs issued previously to Pantranco were still valid and were not expired at the time they were publicly auctioned by NLRC to the unions to partly answer for back wages, separation pay, and other money claims. Neither did the CPCs expire even as the bus firm closed due to bankruptcy in 1993. Thus, the CPCs were also legally and validly levied and auctioned to the unions and subsequently sold.
“Franchise verification documents will show that these franchises were listed as active by no less than the LTFRB itself,” the unions said. They also noted that the sequestration of Pantranco in 1986 froze all company assets — including the CPCs — to “prevent dissipation,” while its application for suspension of payments with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in 1992 had a similar effect.
“With such sequestration and subsequent rehabilitation, the assets of (Pantranco), including its accounts and franchises, were correspondingly ‘frozen’ again or put in a state of suspended animation, to preserve their value so as to enable the eventual satisfaction of claims of judgment of creditors of (Pan-tranco),” the unions added.