Cleaning up CA mess Herculean task for SC

C.A. STINK: While the Supreme Court is attempting to clean up the mess at the Court of Appeals, it may want to check on a CA division handling a petition for reconstitution of land titles covering almost 890 hectares in highly urbanized areas in Quezon City.

The land in question covers Sta. Mesa, Tatalon, Roxas District, Projects 6, 7 and 8, SM City North and some National Housing Authority properties. Some parties have intervened to protect their interests and to avoid confusion that reconstitution could cause.

The petition was already rejected in 2007 by the CA with a vote of 3-2, but a motion for reconsideration has reportedly gained one more vote, enough to overturn the original decision. A draft ruling is reportedly being circulated.

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CONFUSION: On Dec. 3, 2007, the CA annulled and set aside a QC Regional Trial Court decision dated Sept. 2, 2004, that granted a petition for reconstitution of an alleged lost/destroyed title OCT 56, in the name of Pantaleona Santiago and Blas Fajardo.

The mother title is OCT 735 issued pursuant to Decree No. 17431 on July 6, 1914. It was registered in the names of Mariano Severo Tuason, et al. The Supreme Court had rendered numerous decisions upholding the validity and incontestability of the OCT.

The CA decision of 2007 has prevented confusion and an upheaval of numerous landowners whose titles, derived from OCT 735, are still existing without question.

To allow reconstitution would undermine the integrity of the Torrens title system. It would result in an anomalous situation where two titles in the name of two different owners cover the same property.

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CELLPHONE FEE: California is one ocean away and its state laws normally do not apply to disputes brought before Philippine courts.

But the decision handed down Monday by the Alameda Superior Court on termination fees forced by telephone companies on clients who prematurely end their cellphone contracts could affect policy and law on both sides of the Pacific.

In a preliminary ruling on a complaint brought against Sprint Nextel, Alameda County Superior Court Judge Bonnie Sabraw said such termination fees were illegal under state laws.

Sabraw said Sprint Nextel must pay back its mobile phone users $18.2 million as part of a class-action lawsuit challenging early termination fees and desist from collecting $54.7 million from customers who have not paid the cancellation fee.

Sprint Nexel is likely to appeal. But the Sabraw decision, the first in the US, could influence similar lawsuits pending in other states involving premature termination of telco contracts.

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R.P. APPLICATION: There are about two million Californians locked-in to cellphone service. They pay a fee of $150 to $200 when they terminate their contract.

While a court decision in another country may not be able to stop the enforcement of a termination clause in a contract between a Philippine telco and a user locked in for two years, it could lead to policy and legislation that are more protective of customers.

Being relatively young, the mobile phone industry in the country needs updated, forward-looking, regulatory laws to protect an estimated 55 cellphone users.

In post-paid service where the user is given a permanent line (phone number), he usually chooses a “plan” (involving a maximum number of hours to be paid monthly whether used or not) and is locked-in to the telco for two years.

If he terminates the contract before two years, the user is made to pay a termination fee. This is the penalty that Sabraw said was illegal under state law.

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JURY OVERRULED: A jury in the Alameda lawsuit ruled on June 12 in favor of Sprint Nextel. It said that customers who canceled their service early had violated their contracts and that termination fees were warranted.

Overruling that decision, Sabraw said the jurors erred in assuming that cancellation fees were valid. The judge disagreed with the way the telco determined that its customers owed the fees.

“Sprint did no damage analysis that considered the lost revenue from contracts, the avoidable costs and Sprint’s expected lost profits from contract terminations,” she said.

Chairman Kevin Martin of the Federal Communications Commission has outlined a plan under which termination fees would be reduced over the life of the cellphone contract. Three companies — T-Mobile, AT&T and Verizon Wireless — already do that.

A scheme for tapering termination fees could be adapted for the Philippine situation.

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GORDON IDEA: Local telcos figured in the State of the last Nation Address of President Arroyo when she announced the good news that the P1 charge for a text message had been cut in half.

In the debate that followed, telcos said they were willing to allocate half of their income from text messaging, or 50 centavos per text, to health and education programs as an investment in youth.

The idea was broached by Sen. Richard Gordon reacting to proposals of consumer groups that the texting fee be removed altogether.

 “I am against the removal of the P1 charge on text,” Gordon said. “There are 55 million cellphones users and with just one message a day per user, that’s P55 million. What we can do is leave half of every peso to telcos, but let’s put the other 50 centavos in a program called Health and Education Acceleration Program (HEAP).”

A University of the Philippines physics professor had calculated that the actual cost of a text message is only a fraction of a centavo. Using faster networks like 3G would bring down this cost even lower, he said.

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