Cancer victim scores anew in legal battle vs cigarette firm

MANILA, Philippines - The Court of Appeals has given the go-signal for the Makati Regional Trial Court to proceed with the hearing on the complaint filed by a cancer victim against Philip Morris Philippines Manufacturing Inc (PMPMI). In a two-page resolution, the CA’s Former Seventh Division denied for lack of merit PMPMI’s motion for reconsideration of the Court’s September 22, 2008 decision favoring the complaint filed by Vincent Reyes. “The remedy of petitioner from the trial court’s denial of its motion to dismiss is not the present special civil action of certiorari, but to file answer and go to trial," the ruling said. In its September 22, 2008 decision, the CA affirmed the August 12, 2005 ruling of Judge Winlove Dumayas of the Makati RTC Branch 59 that denied PMPMI’s motion to dismiss the amended complaint on the grounds of prescription and lack of cause of action on the part of the cigarette brand. Reyes, a brother of running priest Fr. Robert Reyes, claimed that he was enticed “through a barrage of television advertisements" to smoke Philip Morris cigarettes since he was 14. At 46, he discovered he has lung cancer. This was five years after he had quit smoking. PMPMI is the local subsidiary of international cigarette brand Philip Morris. In its decision, the CA ruled that the arguments raised by PMPMI have already been considered and passed upon by the Court, and that no issue was cited to merit a reversal of its ruling. The CA likewise turned down the firm’s motion to hold oral arguments on the ground that the motion for reconsideration involves substantial issues regarding the appreciation and weight of evidence in resolving issues of prescription. “This matter should be ventilated before the trial court as the office of the Court in the present special civil action of certiorari is limited only to issues of grave abuse of discretion and lack of jurisdiction," the CA said. The decision was penned by Associate Justice Fernanda Lampas-Peralta and concurred by Associate Justices Edgardo Cruz and Normandie Pizarro. PMPMI had sought the dismissal of Reyes’ amended complaint on grounds of prescription and lack of cause of action on the part of the cigarette brand. It argued that the case already prescribed because Reyes filed the original complaint on May 31, 2004 and the amended complaint on October 28, 2004. - GMANews.TV