Insurance agents hail CA ruling on CTPL

MANILA, Philippines – Thousands of employees and agents of insurance firms servicing the compulsory third party liability (CTPL) insurance business hailed the Court of Appeals (CA) for issuing an injunction against Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) Order 28-2007.

The order seeks to integrate the issuance of CTPL insurance policies to motor vehicle owners registering their vehicles at the Land Transportation Office (LTO).

Various groups claimed that the move would give the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) a monopoly on the CTPL insurance business and render some 11,000 workers of private insurance firms jobless.

Salvador Navidad, president of the Bukluran ng Manggagawa ng Industriya ng Seguro (BMIS), said that the CA special 17th division, composed of Associate Justices Lucas Bersamin, Estela Perlas-Bernabe, and Sixto Marella Jr., has renewed their faith in the country’s judicial system.

“The ruling of the Court of Appeals has shown us that we can still get justice from our courts. We are very grateful that the CA has seen merit in our case and issued the injunction against the order,” Navidad told The STAR.

The CA Special Division issued last Friday a writ of preliminary injunction against the DOTC stopping the implementation of Order 28-2007.

Petitioners had asked the CA to declare it unconstitutional and illegal.

The BMIS, Alliance of Non-Life Insurance Workers of the Philippines, and Movement for the Upliftment of Non-Life Insurance, Inc. (MUNLI) filed their petition with the CA several weeks ago, claiming that officials of the DOTC, led by Secretary Leandro Mendoza, and former and current officials of the LTO, had gravely abused their authority in issuing and trying to implement the order which was highly anomalous.