5 car owners eye raps vs TV exec

MANILA, Philippines - A 73-year-old television executive may be sued by the owners of five of at least eight vehicles damaged when his car plunged from a parking building of the Greenhills Shopping Center last Friday.

“We are still waiting for at least four to five complainants to surface before filing the formal charges. The car owners were told to bring the estimate of the damages to their vehicles,” San Juan police officer-in-charge Superintendent Jose Rivera said in an interview yesterday. “One of the drivers of the damaged vehicles sustained slight injuries.”

Among the damaged vehicles were a Toyota Vios, Mitsubishi Montero Sport, Honda Jazz, Ford Ranger, Toyota Hi-Ace and Toyota Fortuner.

He said he will only divulge the identities of the complainants after the formal filing of charges of reckless imprudence resulting in multiple damage to property and physical injuries against Juanito Nocos, vice president for sales of Basketball TV.

Nocos reportedly “passed out” and lost control of his white Mitsubishi sedan, which crashed into five cars on the third level of the parking building and damaged four more vehicles when it crashed through the building’s wall and fell to the ground, police said.

Nocos was saved from serious injury by his car’s airbag, Rivera said, adding that the executive was reported to be in stable condition at the Cardinal Santos Medical Center.

Nocos has yet to talk to police investigators, according to Rivera.

The San Juan police chief said they have yet to find out whether Nocos is wearing a pacemaker, a small device placed in the chest to help control abnormal heartbeat.

People wearing pacemakers and those who underwent heart bypass surgery are banned by the Land Transportation Office from driving vehicles as they “endanger other people,” Rivera said.

Nocos faces additional charges if he is found to be wearing a pacemaker, he added.

Cathy Ko, general manager of the shopping center division of Ortigas & Co., said in a television interview that Nocos was trying to back out of his parking slot when he passed out and crashed into several vehicles before breaching the building wall.