Students file contempt raps vs PSBA officials

MANILA, Philippines - Students of the Philippine School of Business Administration in Quezon City (PSBA-QC) filed a petition for indirect contempt against school officials for sending a letter to city hall regarding the school’s shutdown despite a court order banning the officials from closing down the school.

In a five-page petition filed on Friday, students Mary Plet Paguio, Charllaine Zape and Patrick Lloret said a Dec. 2 letter was sent to the city hall despite a Quezon City court’s writ of preliminary injunction preventing the school’s shutdown.

“The closure (as stated in the letter) was not only attended with bad faith but is clearly contemptuous and in direct contravention of the order of the… court,” read the petition filed through lawyer Antonio Inton Jr.

Named respondents were PSBA Inc. stockholders Juan Lim, Jose Peralta, Antonio Magtalas, chief accountant Ligaya Tendido, and corporate secretary Harold Anthony Martin Lim.

The stockholders were the original respondents in the injunction case filed before Regional Trial Court Branch 104 Judge Catherine Manodon. The accountant and treasurer were included in the petition as they signed the letter and secretary’s certificate sent to the office of the city mayor.

The indirect contempt petition was raffled off to Quezon City Regional Trial Court Branch 220 under the sala of Judge Jose Paneda.

The students said they enrolled for the second semester believing that the school is following the injunction issued by Manodon that prevented the shutdown.

However, they learned that a letter was sent to the city hall informing Quezon City mayor Herbert Bautista of the closure of the PSBA campus on Oct. 18.

Attached to the letter was a secretary’s certificate detailing the resolutions approving the shutdown of the school.

The PSBA students said the respondents received the writ of preliminary injunction on Nov. 26 or six days before the letter was sent to the city hall.

The students argued that the act of sending a letter to the city mayor cannot be seen as a “clerical act” that could be done by any employee of the corporation, since the signatory must possess an authority to represent the corporation.

They added that the letter “is a deliberate act of the respondents committed against the writ of preliminary injunction.”

“The vileness of the intent of the respondents to circumvent the order of the court and inflict further damage and prejudice to herein petitioners could not be made more manifest,” the petition noted.

The students asked that the respondents be made to explain their actions and cited for indirect contempt of the court’s injunction order. They also asked that the contested letter to Bautista’s office be withdrawn.