THE Supreme Court has taken cognizance of the petition filed by Solicitor General Jose Calida seeking to enjoin Sen. Antonio F. Trillanes IV from pushing through with a Senate inquiry over alleged anomalous contracts bagged by his family-owned security agency.
In a three-page notice, the SC en banc has given both the Calida and Trillanes camps to submit their respective memoranda to the petition.
“Considering the allegations, issues and arguments adduced in the petition, as well as in the comment thereon…the Court resolved to give due course to the petition; treat the comment as answer; and require the parties to submit their respective memoranda within 30 days from notice hereof.”
The Court compelled the parties to include in their memoranda a statement of the cases, statement of facts, statement of the issues, the argument, relief or judgment being sought by the parties and a table of authorities, which is a list of statutes, cases, executive issuances, rules and regulations and books or articles cited with references to the pages in the memorandum where they are cited.
The SC issued the resolution last October 9 but it was only released to the media on Thursday.
“No new issues may be raised by a party in the memorandum, and the issues raised in the pleadings but not included in the memorandum shall be deemed waived or abandoned. Being a summation of the parties’ previous pleadings, the Court may consider the memorandum alone in deciding or resolving the petition,” the notice read.
The High Court also granted the motion to admit reply to the comment/opposition of Trillanes dated last September 28 filed by counsel for petitioners.
In his petition filed in August, Calida and some members of his family, namely, Milagros, Josef, Michelle, and Mark Jorel sought the Court’s issuance of a temporary restraining order and/or preliminary injunction against Trillanes’s planned inquiry.
They asked the court to rule on whether Trillanes committed “grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction” when he invited Calida and members of his family to appear before a Senate inquiry.
Trillanes called for an inquiry to determine if there was conflict of interest in the contracts that the Calida family’s Vigilant Investigative and Security Agency Inc. entered with several government agencies.
Calida, in his petition, said that the proposed inquiry does not serve a legislative purpose but would be conducted “to humiliate and carry out the personal and hostile agenda of the respondent.”