Reghis Romero may continue to pursue cases over Manila port — Court of Appeals

A FAVORABLE ruling was granted by the Court of Appeals (CA) to businessman Reghis M. Romero II, allowing him to continue legal action concerning the ownership dispute of the Harbour Centre Port Terminal, Inc. ( HCPTI).

In a decision dated Aug. 18, the appellate court declared as null the Pasig trial court order which banned the continuance of civil, criminal, and administrative cases by Mr. Romero in behalf of the port facility, saying it was issued with grave abuse of discretion.

CA Associate Justices Ramon A. Cruz penned the decision, with CA Associate Justices Marlene G. Sison, and Henri Jean Paul B. Inting concurring.

The CA clarified that it is not ruling over the ownership of HCPTI but merely on the judicial soundness of the assailed order issued by Pasig Regional Trial Court Judge Rolando G. Mislang on June 9.

HCPTI operates a 10-hectare port terminal inside the 79-hectare complex Manila North Harbour Centre.

The now set-aside Pasig trial court order had prevented Mr. Romero, his representatives, agents, and employees from representing themselves as owners of HCPTI as well as from initiating and pursuing existing administrative, civil, or criminal cases to that effect.

The CA ruled that the RTC order unfairly relegated Mr. Romero, who also owns R- II Builders, “to be a mere spectator where he may no longer pursue his rights of ownership over HCPTI.”

Mr. Romero is currently engaged in a protracted legal battle with his estranged son Michael over the ownership of the 10- hectare terminal facility.

The camp of the elder Romero was said to have nullified contracts between the port facility and service provider One Source Port Support Services, Inc, prompting the latter to sue him before the Pasig trial court.

Reportedly affiliated with the camp of the younger Romero, One Source Port Support Services, Inc. was contracted in January 2007 to render port ancillary services and management to HCPTI.

In December 2014, a shoot-out at an HCPTI terminal facility inside the Manila South Harbor in Roxas Boulevard was linked to the ownership dispute between the groups of the father-and-son Romeros.

The trial court had previously issued a temporary relief in favor of the service provider, but the older Romero ran to the CA and secured in 2015 a temporary injunction on the trial at the Pasig court. —