Judge stops closure of PSBA-QC

MANILA, Philippines - A Quezon City judge issued yesterday a 20-day temporary restraining order (TRO) stopping the implementation today of the notice of closure of the Philippine School of Business Administration in Quezon City (PSBA-QC).

In a four-page order, Judge Catherine Manodon of the Regional Trial Court Branch 104 said the students would suffer irreparable injury if the closure of the school will not be restrained prior to the hearing of the request for a preliminary injunction.

Manodon ordered the petitioners to post a bond amounting to P200,000 to answer for whatever damages that will be suffered in connection with the issuance of a TRO. She set the hearing on the petition for a writ of preliminary injunction on Oct. 24.

The case stemmed from a petition filed last week by students Mary Plet Paguio, Charlene Zape and Patrick Lloret saying the issuance of the notice of closure was in violation of their right to complete their degrees in the school.

“The closure of the school and the non-acceptance of students for enrollment will certainly be to the damage and prejudice of respondents who have the proprietary right to continue their course up to graduation,” read the petition filed through lawyer and former councilor Antonio Inton.

It was filed after a notice of closure was released on the school’s website on Sept. 23 and published in The STAR in the following week.

The notice – signed by stockholders Juan Lim as chairman and Ramon Peralta as president – said the school’s board of directors and stockholders, representing at least 98.99 percent of the outstanding capital stock of PSBA-QC, unanimously approved the closure of the school effective Oct. 18.

The reasons cited in the notice were business losses incurred in the past eight years, and the fact that the school is being operated by Benjamin Paulino without independent permit from Commission on Higher Education CHED and without authority from PSBA, Inc.

Named respondents in the petition were Lim, Peralta, listed stockholder Antonio Magtalas CHED chairperson Patricia Licuanan, and CHED National Capital Region director Catherine Castañeda.

It noted that the legal personality of Magtalas to sit in the school’s board of directors is currently being questioned by Paulino.

Internal issue

In the petition, Inton said the squabble between the owners should not affect the welfare of the students.

He noted that a notice posted in the campus stating that the school will still accept enrollees for the second semester “poses a serious challenge to the allegation of financial loses and questions the integrity of the respondents in making their declaration in the notice of closure.”

During a summary hearing on the petition this week,  Lim, Peralta and Magtalas argued that the right to operate a school includes the right to close for any valid reason.