MRT faces contempt over ads takeover

MANILA, Philippines - The Metro Rail Transit Development Corp. (MRT Devco) has been issued a show cause order by a Pasig City regional trial court over its recent moves to assume control of the placement and selling of advertisement on the EDSA-bound MRT stations and trains.

The Pasig RTC has ordered MRT Devco’s executives Robert John Sobrepeña and Rommel Gavieta, and their lawyers Gilbert Raymund Reyes and Dino Vivenco Tamayo to show cause or explain why they should not be cited in contempt over the pending case filed against them by out-of-home media company Trackworks.

Trackworks, it will be recalled filed a motion recently wherein they alleged that MRT Devco was defying a status quo order of the RTC when it pursued efforts to communicate with the advertiser-clients of Trackworks. In letters to the clients of Trackworks, the counself of MRT Devco has informed these companies that they were set to exercise their development and advertising rights over the MRT stations and trains.

Counsels of the MRT Devco from the Poblador, Bautista and Reyes law firm, on the other hand, denied that the Pasig RTC had issued a stay order. Trackworks, which has exclusively conducted advertising activities in MRT since 1998, has been fighting to keep their control of the advertising spaces at the EDSA-bound rail line, which they bagged through a deal with the MRT Devco.

Trackworks noted that no less than the Supreme Court itself had upheld their exclusive right to sell advertising spaces at the MRT when they were embroiled in a fight with the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) which sought to dismantle their advertising billboards and signages last year.

In that ruling, the SC reaffirmed the right of Trackworks as the only legal entity authorized to sell advertising opportunities at the MRT.