THE Court of Appeals (CA) has upheld an Olongapo City court verdict ordering an airline company to pay more than $160,000 in damages for failing to pay rental for the use of the facilities owned by Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA). Associate Justice Remedios Salazar-Fernando with concurrence of Associate Justices Priscilla Baltazar-Padilla and Socorro Inting, the CA’s Second Division denied the appeal of Centennial Air, Inc. (CAIR), et al. and its board, subsequently affirming the decision dated April 8, 2014 of the Regional Trial Court (RTC), Branch 72, of Olongapo City. SBMA agreed to lease its building located at Subic Bay International Airport (SBIA) to Centennial from February 1, 1999 to January 31, 2004. However, CAIR became delinquent and remiss in the payment of its obligations, until the case reached the lower court, impleading its officers led by Jennifer Enano-Bote. The RTC ordered CAIR to pay the total amount of US$163,341.89, plus legal interest to SBMA as it instructed third-party defendant Jose Ch. Alvarez [now Palawan governor] to refund/reimburse to individual defendants Enano-Bote and several others. Besides, Alvarez was also ordered to pay Enano-Bote the amount of P300,000 by way of moral damages and P200,000 as attorney’s fees.
