CA allows Peryahan ng Bayan operations to continue

MANILA, Philippines — The Court of Appeals (CA) has allowed the operations of Peryahan ng Bayan (PNB) of Globaltech Mobile Online Corp. to continue.

In a 24-page decision promulgated on Jan. 15, the CA’s Eighth Division upheld the status quo ante (SQA) order issued by Pasig City Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 161 in May 2016 that allowed PNB operations to proceed pending resolution of the dispute involving the termination of Globaltech’s permit by the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO).

The ruling, penned by Associate Justice Ramon Cruz, dismissed the petition filed by PCSO questioning the SQA and ruled that the RTC was correct in issuing the order that directed the gaming regulator “to continue sending a PCSO representative daily to the draw centers of Globaltech for the conduct of the Peryahan Games.”

The CA said the PCSO “must comply with certain requirements under the contract and should not result in undue deprivation of property without due process or in wanton disregard of the provisions of the contract between the parties.”

It added that the regulator has no “blanket authority to unilaterally terminate the contract without warning and in violation of the provisions thereof.”

The CA also affirmed the RTC order for the parties to proceed with the arbitration proceedings to settle their dispute on the decision of the PCSO to terminate its contract with Globaltech.

Associate Justices Ramon Bato Jr. and Ronaldo Roberto Martin concurred in this ruling.

RTC Judge Nicanor Manalo Jr. ordered the parties to resolve the dispute through arbitration or judicial dispute resolution while allowing Globaltech to continue with its PNB operations.

The trial court also required Globaltech to post a bond of P50 million for its bid for the regularization of its operations, which were based only on a renewable DOA with PCSO.

The PCSO terminated the DOA with Globaltech in February 2016 through Resolution No. 51 due to the firm’s failure to remit P50 million in revenue to the gaming regulatory agency.

Globaltech, on the other hand, questioned the termination of the DOA and attributed its failure to raise the amount to PCSO’s refusal to grant the firm regularization for a full eight-year period for which it qualified.

It explained that the lack of a regular permit from PCSO has repercussions on its operations, specifically citing the denial of business permit for its draw center in Laoc, Pangasinan and the threats of arrest of its sales agents from law enforcement authorities.

The PNB has 501 point-of-sale terminals in the country. Globaltech earlier said it could raise P100 billion in annual revenue if only PCSO would regularize its PNB operations.