Dante Tan snubs DOJ hearing, asks SC to stop probe

Presidential friend Dante Tan snubbed yesterday a preliminary investigation hearing of the Department of Justice (DOJ) into the Best World (BW) insider trading case.

He instead asked the Court of Appeals (CA) to stop the investigation, claiming he was not accorded due process.

Tan's lawyer, Agnes Maranan, and the counsel of his co-accused Jimmy Juan, also asked the DOJ panel to suspend the proceedings because they have a pending civil case filed against their clients by a certain James Dy before a Dagupan City court in Pangasinan.

Dy claimed he lost P5 million when Tan and Juan, both majority stockholders of the gaming company, allegedly manipulated the stock price of BW in the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE).

He complained that "his losses were caused by the artificial rise and drastic plunge in the price of BW shares resulting from the manipulative schemes and devices allegedly employed by Juan and Tan, which are violative of the Revised Securities Act."

Tan's lawyer in the CA petition, Armando Marcelo, told reporters that the charges filed against his client by the Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) prosecution and enforcement division were invalid from the very start as Tan was not given the opportunity to rebut them.

"It's null and void. It violated Tan's right to due process. We also asked the CA to remand the case to the SEC for further investigation since the DOJ cannot assume jurisdiction on this case. He's being tried by publicity," Marcelo said.

Tan and Juan did not file their counter-affidavits but their co-respondent Eduardo "Moonie" Lim Jr. did, and so did the presidents of five securities firms allegedly involved in the BW stock scandal -- PNB Securities Inc., Belson Securities Inc., SEC 2000 Inc., Aurora Securities Inc. and Mark Securities Inc.

Assistant Chief State Prosecutor Nilo Mariano, DOJ panel head, said the preliminary hearing will push through unless the appellate court restrains them. "The preliminary investigation will continue because the respondents have filed their counter-affidavits. But we will stop if the CA issues an injunction," he said.

Mariano also gave the head of the SEC prosecution division, Ruben Ladia, ten days within which to file his reply-affidavit to the counter-affidavits submitted by the respondents.

Mariano said earlier that the DOJ case will not be affected at all by the pending BW case at the CA because Ladia assured them that the charges were not based on the report of the PSE, but on their own.

CA Justice Eloy Bello Jr. issued on March 22 a preliminary injunction indefinitely stopping the SEC from filing the criminal charges before the DOJ, but only if it based its suit on the report by the PSE's compliance and surveillance department, then headed by Ruben Almadro.

Almadro resigned in disgust after claiming that the PSE was protecting brokers involved in the BW scandal.

Ladia, his colleagues Eligio Almojedra, Rommel Oliva and three others went to the DOJ on April 13 to reaffirm the charges they had filed a week earlier. The charges were filed in defiance to the CA injunction.