Pyrrhic victory

Nosy Tarsee has another riddle: Which defunct bank just won a fight that began when many of silver-haired Filipinos were still in school? Here is a hint. It no longer has a sign on any building. A bigger lender swallowed it years ago. Yet it just beat the government in the highest court.

In 1985, a troubled bank was shut down. The central bank invited others to bid for its assets. The mystery bank made an offer and the bid was accepted. Both sides signed an agreement in 1986. The mystery bank paid. It moved in and opened its own branches. It even served the old bank’s depositors.

The liquidator never signed the deeds of sale. Then a new liquidator took over. He said the price was now much higher. He also tried to sell the same properties to others. So the mystery bank went to court.

The trial court said yes. The Court of Appeals said no. The Supreme Court finally said yes in 2015. That was 30 years after the bid. The ruling became final in 2016.

Here is the twist. In listing the properties, the Court left one out. It was a branch in a northern city. No one gave a reason. It was simply missing.

Final rulings usually cannot be changed. But there are exceptions. One is a “nunc pro tunc” order. It is Latin for “now for then.” It does not change the ruling. It only makes the record match what the Court already decided.

The Court checked its own records. Every document had listed that branch. The Court had even said the disputed assets were never pledged as collateral. Even the government lawyers agreed the branch was part of the case. No one stood to lose anything.

The Court fixed the list and ordered the missing branch added. The trial court must now compute its price.

The winner is gone. The loser is gone, too. The old bank’s books closed in 2016.

So who gets the keys, and who pays whom after forty years?