Aside from the petition for mandamus, APMP and its Executive Director Mario Jose Sereno also asked the court in a petition filed in November 30 last year that respondents pay P500,000 to defray its cost of litigation and for attorney’s fees.

Respondents in the case include the Committee on Trade and Related Matters (CTRM) of the National Economic and Development Authority composed of the Director-General of the NEDA Secretariat, the Executive Secretary, the Secretaries of Trade and Industry, Finance, Foreign Affairs, Agriculture, Environment and Natural Resources, Budget and Management, Transportation and Communication, Labor and Employment, Agrarian Reform, the Governor of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas and the Chairman of the Tariff Commission and Brenda R. Mendoza, in her capacity as Director of the Trade Industry and Utilities Staff.

It could be recalled that APMP had requested from CTRM for access to the minutes of the meetings that led to a decision by the Cabinet-level CTRM to recommend to the NEDA Board to proceed with the reduction of tariffs on the 11 midstream petrochemical products and the subsequent issuance of an Executive Order effecting the tariff adjustments.

In its petition, APMP noted that Mendoza said that CTRM would seek an opinion from the Department of Justice on whether or not the minutes sought are privileged and, therefore, fall outside the scope of the Constitutional right to information.

"This belated referral of the matter to the DOJ betrays respondents poorly disguised malice and extreme bad faith in refusing to grant APMP’s valid and legitimate request," the petitioner said.

The petitioners cited Section 3 (Petition for mandamus) of the Revised Rules of Civil Procedures, which provides that "When any officer or person unlawfully excludes another from the use and enjoyment of a right to which such other is entitled the person aggrieved thereby may file a verified petition in the proper court, alleging the facts with certainty and praying that judgment be rendered commanding the respondent to do the act required to be done to protect the rights of the petitioner and to pay the damages sustained by the petitioner by reason of the wrongful acts of the respondent."

So far, however, the prepared EO effecting the tariff reduction on 11 petrochemical products from 7 percent to a maximum of 5 percent has yet to be issued.

The EO was supposed to be issued in the second semest! er of the year when the Cabinet-level CTRM has recommended the lowering of the petrochemical tariffs but the APMP led by the Gokongwei-owned JG Summit Petrochemicals Corp. (JGSPC) had made a last minute appeal against the tariff reduction.

JGSPC is a proponent of a P26 billion naphtha cracker plant in Batangas that is expected to be operational by 2008. The Gokongwei firm said that the completion of the project is largely hinge on the government’s continued support to the industry by way of higher tariffs.

The new economic team favorably grant the APMP request of further consultation to give way to what they claimed as new information to be presented to support their case.

However, after the consultation, the Cabinet-level CTRM had decided to uphold the earlier decision to proceed with the reduction in tariffs.

The APMP then sought for a copy of the minutes of the meeting saying they must know what is the basis of the government decision to lower tariffs on the midstream petrochemical products.

The CTRM secretariat headed by Mendoza of the NEDA then sought an opinion from the DOJ saying the APMP request for access to the minutes of the meeting could be precedent setting.

It could be recalled that based on the APMP petition, the government had excluded the petrochemical industry for two years or up to December 30, 2004 from the scheduled tariff cuts on petrochemical products under the AFTA’s Common Effective Preferential Tariff (CEPT) scheme.

Until now the government has yet to put the local petrochemical industry in the normal CEPT tariff cut schedule as the APMP has put up a strong objection to the consternation of downstream plastics products makers.

JGSPC even threatened to pull out its upstream naphtha cracker project unless the government continue with the tariff protection.(BCM)