ML victims' $2B claim junked again
MANILA — Thousands of martial law claimants suffered another setback in their fight for compensation from the estate of late dictator Ferdinand Marcos as the Court of Appeals junked their motion for reconsideration on their $2-billion claim.
The former 12th Division of the CA on January 3 junked the appeal filed by human rights claimants against Marcos estate. They had asked the appellate court to enforce the February 3, 1995 decision of a Hawaii court awarding $1.964 billion to the martial law victims.
Priscilla Mijares, former Commissioner on Human Rights chair Loreta Ann Rosales, Hilda Narciso Jr., Mariano Dimaranan, Joel Lamangan lead a thousand other petitioners in the case.
But the CA, in ruling on their motion for reconsideration, said that it found "no new or substantial matter that would warrant a reversal or modification of our July 7, 2017 decision affirming the assailed decision."
The earlier July decision dismissed the petition and held that the decision of the Hawaii district court on Class Action No. MDL 840 was not binding on another class suit in a Makati court, which included unnamed claimants.
The appellate court also held that: "There being no common question of law and fact between the claimants in MDL 840, the same was improperly lodged as a class suit."
In its earlier ruling, the court said that due to the classification of the claimants into three categories—torture, summary execution and disappearance victims—the case cannot be considered a class suit.
The court explained that a class suit should mean that the parties who file the case both for themselves and those they seek to represent share a common legal interest – “that is, the subject of the suit over which there exists a cause of action is common to all persons who belong to the group.”