THE Court of Appeals (CA) on Wednesday, Jan. 3, denied for lack of merit a motion for reconsideration filed by a coalition of victims of human rights violation during the martial-law regime of the late dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos.

The resolution penned by Associate Justice Normandie B. Pizarro and concurred by Associate Justices Samuel H. Gaerlan and Jhosep Y. Lopez read in part: “This Court finds no new or substantial matter that would warrant a reversal or modification of our July 7, 2017 decision affirming the assailed disposition.”

The group of martial-law victims, represented by Mses. Priscilla Mijares, Loreta Ann P. Rosales, Hilda B. Narciso Jr., and Mariani Dimaranan SFIC, and Mr. Joel C. Lamangan had earlier filed a petition calling for the recognition of the Class Action No. MDL 840 filed before the Hawaii District Court.

The Hawaiian Court ruled that the complainants should be given $2 billion worth compensation from the estate of the late Mr. Marcos.

The CA reiterated its previous ruling that “the categorization or classification of the claimants into three (3) subclasses is a tacit recognition that no common question of law and fact exists between/among the claimants,” and added that MDL 840 was “improperly lodged as a class suit.”

Likewise, the judgment of the Hawaii Court gave “no opportunity for the Marcos Estate to confront each and every claimant,” the CA stated.

The CA also noted that the ruling “was filed under the Alient Tort Statute (ATS), also called Alient Tort Claims Act (ATCA)” which based the decision upon a different law, “presumably the Torture Victim Protection Act.”

“This invalidates the disposition considering that a decision that does not conform to the form and substance required by the Constitution and the law is void and deemed legally nonexistent,” the CA decided. — Minde Nyl R. Dela Cruz

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