‘Our voice has not been recognized’: Plant workers appeal to the Supreme Court

We, workers of the W’Ttreat Chemical Trading Corp. at its plant in Marilao, Bulacan, respectfully present our plight in the “court of public opinion.”

A case that can close down this plant has been heard in the courts with no representation on our behalf. The Regional Trial Court (RTC), Court of Appeals (CA), and now the Supreme Court heard the parties fighting over wealth. We are fighting for our jobs and our children’s future. Our voice has not been recognized. We tried to reach out to the high court justices by going to Padre Faura, but right at the gates, our effort was blocked by the security guards. A potential legal miscarriage of justice can make us lose our livelihood.

Facts of the case: The former owner borrowed money from the bank and mortgaged assets, including a Marilao, Bulacan lot. They failed to pay their loans and the bank foreclosed on those assets. They filed a case in the RTC, asking for the return of their residential asset. They did not question the Marilao asset foreclosure. In fact, they claimed that from the proceeds of the sale of the foreclosed Marilao asset, the bank had been overpaid. They asked the bank to deliver the overpayment to them.

Knowing that the previous owner did not question the bank’s Marilao foreclosure, W’Ttreat bought in 2008 the lot from the bank and set up a processing plant.

For more than 10 years now, the plant has been our source of livelihood, its workers, and many adjoining small businesses. Then, the RTC ruled that the Marilao foreclosure was null and void. The CA sustained the RTC decision. A five-man division of the Supreme Court also sustained the RTC/CA decision. Unless reversed, this decision will be implemented and the Marilao property will go back to the former owner. And we will be jobless; our families will go hungry.

W’Ttreat intervened in the case and filed a motion for reconsideration with the high court, reminding that the Court en banc, in the case of Lazo vs. Republic Surety, L-27365, Jan. 30, 1970, which was similar to the current case, took the position that the plaintiffs did not ask for the annulment of the foreclosure of mortgage. Yet the RTC declared the foreclosure of mortgage null and void. On appeal, the Supreme Court ruled that the RTC had no jurisdiction over the issue of whether the foreclosure was valid or not and, accordingly, could not rule that the foreclosure was null and void.

W’Ttreat further argued as intervenor that the Philippine Constitution provides “xxx that no doctrine or principle of law laid down by the Court in a decision rendered en banc or in division may be modified or reversed except by the Court sitting en banc.” Since the Marilao decision, which was sustained by a five-man Supreme Court division, seeks to reverse the Lazo vs. Republic decision, which was rendered by the Court en banc, the Marilao decision cannot be enforced without the Court en banc sustaining the decision.

We are simple workers and not lawyers. We do not know who between the five-man Supreme Court division that sustained the Marilao decision, and the 15-man Supreme Court affirmed by the esteemed late Justice Florenz Regalado who supported the Lazo vs. Republic Decision, is right. What is certain is that if the Marilao property is returned to the previous owner, when they had ceded it to the bank, which sold it to W’Ttreat, we will lose our jobs. We need help for us to be able to keep our jobs from what can be a miscarriage of justice.

Through this newspaper, we are making this appeal to the honorable Supreme Court justices.

W’TTREAT MARILAO PLANT WORKERS