Court orders arrest of industrialist’s heir

MANILA, Philippines - A Malabon City court has ordered the arrest of businessman Jose Marcelo Jr. after citing him in contempt for defying an order involving the liquidation of estate of his late father, industrialist Jose Marcelo. 

In a decision promulgated last Tuesday and obtained by reporters at the Department of Justice (DOJ), the Malabon City Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 170 found Jose Jr. guilty of indirect contempt. 

In his decision, Judge Zaldy Docena held that Jose Jr. violated a 2012 permanent injunction order enjoining him from taking actions that would impede the orderly liquidation of the now defunct Marcelo Group of Companies.

The decision was in response to a petition filed by Midas International Development Corp. and his niece, Anna Melinda Marcelo-Revilla, in September last year.

Earlier, the same tribunal acknowledged Marcelo-Revilla as liquidator of the Marcelo Group of Companies. Midas Corp. purchased several real estate properties of the Marcelo companies through public auction.

According to Marcelo-Revilla, Jose Jr. wrote the Malabon City Register of Deeds and had his adverse claims annotated on the titles of real estate properties that were part of the assets for liquidation of the Marcelo companies.  

Earlier, the Court of Appeals (CA) set aside an order issued by another trial court judge favoring one of the parties in the dispute involving the Marcelo estate. 

The CA declared that Quezon City RTC Branch 76 Judge Alexander Balut committed “grave abuse of discretion” when he included in the writ of execution some assets that do not actually belong to the Marcelo estate by relying solely on the inventory submitted by Jose Jr.

Jose Jr., the youngest of the four Marcelo siblings, was designated as the estate administrator after his elder brother and the original administrator, Edward, died in 2009.

Edward had been the estate administrator since their father passed away in 1987. Jose Jr.’s designation was opposed by Edward’s children, Marcello-Revilla and John Steven Marcelo.