Petitions for $2B martial law damages junked

MANILA – The Court of Appeals dismissed the petitions filed by martial law victims seeking around $ 2 billion in damages.

The Feb. 3, 1995 decision of a United States federal court, which awarded $1.964 billion to the victims of martial law under the dictator Ferdinand Marcos, was not binding since the said court has no jurisdiction over the class suit, the appellate court said.

“To our minds, the failure of t he f i nal j udgment to meet the standards of what a valid judgment is in our country compels us to deny its enforcement,” read part of the 19-page ruling penned by Associate Justice Normandie Pizarro.

“Rules of comity should not be made to prevail over our Constitution, and we cannot allow foreign impositions to trample upon our sovereignty,” the ruling added.

According to Pizarro, the classification of claimants into three categories — as victims of torture, summary execution and disappearance — cannot fall under a class suit.

“Parties who file the case both for themselves and those they seek to represent share a common legal interest, which is the subject of the suit, over which there exists a cause of action common to all persons who belong to the group,” the court said.

“Each claimant had a right, if any, only to the damage that such individual may have suffered and not one of them had any right to or can claim any interest in the damage or injury which another suffered, therefore this case should not be a class suit,” it added.

In addition, the Hawaii court decision did not ensure that the Filipinos who initiated the case “were truly and legally authorized by t he other