The Lopez cousins finally used a word many outsiders have been waiting to hear: “ceasefire.”

On Thursday, May 14, the 71% majority bloc at Lopez Inc. announced that it was withdrawing the February 27 board resolution that had fired Federico “Piki” Lopez as president and CEO of the family’s private holding company. In its statement, the majority said this would “open a window for discussions,” give the family a chance to “step back,” and help everyone find options “least injurious to the family, the Lopez group, and the investing public.” It also said it was “open to a ceasefire” if there was a “reasonable expectation of fair compromise and access to information.”

For weeks, investors, employees, and governance watchers have seen the family fight as a kind of live teleserye (tv series) where every episode brings a new accusation, a new disclosure, a new legal filing. A ceasefire sounds like the moment when the credits roll and the drama slows. The natural questions follow: is this finally good news? Is someone finally acting like the adult in the room, trying to calm things down? Is Piki back in place as the undisputed head of the family business?

The short answer is that the May 14 statement takes one dangerous move off the board and lowers the chance of a sudden leadership shock. It does not end the feud. It shifts it into a more technical setting: the Court of Appeals, the intra-corporate cases, the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) decisions on annual meetings, and the way the contested deals are understood.

On Friday, May 15 or a day later, Piki Lopez answered with his own statement. He called the withdrawal “a possible first step for all parties to finally resolve the issues dividing the family,” and said he hoped the majority would “back up the gesture with genuine, positive and concrete efforts” toward an “amicable, fair and lasting resolution” of the rift within Lopez Inc.

What changed: One board decision, not the whole conflict

To see what the ceasefire means, it helps to remember what it undid.

On February 27, five of the seven Lopez Inc. directors — representing about 71% of the family’s shares — voted to remove Piki as president and CEO. They said they had lost trust and confidence in him. They accused him of pushing P113 billion worth of transactions (reduced from the original P125 billion) through First Gen with Enrique Razon Jr.’s Prime Infrastructure without authority from the majority, and of agreeing to “poison pill” provisions that, in their view, would make his removal too costly for the Lopez group and First Gen shareholders.

Piki went to court. The Mandaluyong Regional Trial Court first issued a temporary restraining order (TRO), then a writ of preliminary injunction. These orders stopped the implementation of the February 27 decisions and barred the defendants from treating him as removed or replaced as officer, director, or representative of Lopez Inc. in the companies where it exercises its shareholder votes.

The May 14 move removes the original trigger. When the majority says it has “withdrawn” the February 27 resolution, it is canceling the very board action that the injunction had frozen. There is no longer an active Lopez Inc. decision saying “we fired him.”

For the group’s structure, that matters. Lopez Inc. sits at the top of a chain that includes Lopez Holdings Corporation, First Philippine Holdings (FPH), First Gen, Rockwell Land, ABS-CBN, and ABS-CBN Holdings. If the board resolution had stood and the injunction had not, there was a real risk of two rival versions of “who speaks for Lopez Inc.” competing to nominate directors, vote at annual meetings, and speak to regulators. With the February 27 action now gone, that particular danger has eased. For now, there is no dueling president at the apex.

This is what “ceasefire on paper” really means: one resolution has been erased from the minutes, but the story the majority tells about that resolution has not changed. On paper, the move looks like a retreat. In practice, it is a pause on a single decision, not on the conclusions the majority has already reached about Piki and the deals. That is the straightforward “good news” part. It takes away one immediate source of instability and gives the companies below a clearer line of authority while the courts work.

What did not change: The story the majority is telling

But if you read beyond the headline of the May 14 statement, the rest of the story is less soothing.

Nowhere does the majority say it has restored its trust in Piki. The statement does not back away from any of the earlier accusations. On the contrary, it repeats them. It says again that Lopez Inc. can remove officers “with or without cause,” that the board had already voted 5–2 to do so, that he entered into billions of pesos’ worth of deals “without any authority from the majority,” and that they found “self-serving ‘poison pills’” that could cost the Lopez group and First Gen shareholders up to P24 billion and trigger loan cross-defaults if he is removed. (READ: [Vantage Point] First Gen shareholders need an antidote to a ‘poison pill’)

“Harm has been done to everybody,” the majority says. “Reputational damage is there. Our family has been in a fishbowl with everybody looking in. Agreements have been signed with undeserved financial penalties especially for the investing public.” That is not an apology. It is a way of saying: yes, this has gone badly for all of us, but the problem lies in the agreements and the current direction, not in our decision to call them out.

In other words, the ceasefire is directed at one tactic, not at the underlying theory of the case. The majority has stepped back from using its 71% voting muscle at Lopez Inc. to force a change at the top while the injunction is in place. It has not stepped back from its core claim that the family’s interests — and those of public investors — were put at risk by how these deals were done.

The legal fight now lives somewhere else

The May 14 statement itself points to the new arena. “The case is now at the Court of Appeals for the lifting of the injunction,” it notes. That signals that the majority is still asking a higher court to free its hand under the by-laws. It wants the freedom to act again in the future, even if it has parked the February 27 move for now.

At the same time, a different legal battle is unfolding one floor down at Lopez Holdings. On April 10, Piki — in his capacity as Lopez Holdings chairman — filed a petition for indirect contempt against Lopez Holdings directors Rafael Lopez, Martin Lopez, Michael Jack Garcia, Salvador Tirona, and the corporate secretary and assistant secretary. He alleges that they willfully violated the Mandaluyong court’s orders. During a March 26 special board meeting, they treated Lopez Inc. as not covered by the TRO and injunction, and voted to submit two competing lists of nominees, including one from a Lopez Holdings minority shareholder, to First Philippine Holdings. The case was disclosed to the exchange a month later, on May 14.

The Mandaluyong court has directed the respondents to comment on the petition. The case asks whether the way Lopez Holdings handled nominations to FPH counted as a breach of the injunction meant to protect his role at Lopez Inc. It is an example of how quickly a fight at the family-holding level has spilled into the governance of the listed intermediate holding company.

Taken together, this is what “war in the courts” now looks like for the Lopez feud. One case in Mandaluyong tests how far an injunction protecting a Lopez Inc. president can reach into Lopez Holdings decisions. Another case in the Court of Appeals will decide how much freedom the Lopez Inc. majority still has to use its by-laws against him. And in the background, the SEC’s decision to let FPH hold an annual meeting without elections shows that even the calendar of shareholder rights has become part of that legal battlefield.

Meanwhile, at FPH, the dispute has already reshaped something ordinary investors used to take for granted: annual elections. As Rappler reported earlier (see link to story below), FPH’s board and the SEC’s Markets and Securities Regulation Department have agreed that FPH’s July 27, 2026 annual stockholders’ meeting can proceed without electing a new board. The incumbent board, where Piki sits as chairman, will stay in place on holdover until the intra-corporate dispute is resolved or a court orders an election.

That arrangement uses the discretion built into the Revised Corporation Code in a way the law’s drafters likely did not expect. Section 25 allows the SEC to order elections when a company fails to hold one. In FPH’s case, the regulator approved in advance an annual meeting with no elections, based on the ongoing shareholder fight. It is still a meeting. But it is not the usual kind of accountability moment. So while the February 27 resolution is gone, the war has simply followed the wiring diagram of the Lopez group: from Lopez Inc. to Lopez Holdings to FPH to First Gen, and from boardrooms to courtrooms.

Is someone finally calming things down?

The tone of the May 14 statement is noticeably different from the earlier blasts from the majority. It trades the earlier “he’s acting like a king” and we “fired him for cause” posture-framing for phrases like “step back,” “window for discussions,” and “least injurious.” It acknowledges reputational damage and openly mentions the “fishbowl” feeling of being watched by the public and the market.

That change in tone is not trivial. It shows that the majority is aware that the feud itself has become a problem, not just the contested deals. It also shows an understanding that courts, regulators, and investors listen not only to the legal arguments but also to the way each side describes its own power.

Piki’s May 15 statement mirrors that shift in its own way. He frames the withdrawal as a chance to “finally resolve the issues dividing the family,” but also calls for “a stop of the misinformation harming the Lopez Group,” signaling that he, too, sees reputational damage as a live risk for investors, lenders, and employees who have little to do with the cousins’ quarrel.

At the same time, the majority’s statement remains a piece of advocacy. It rehearses the 5–2 vote and the “with or without cause” language of the by-laws. It keeps the focus on “undeserved financial penalties especially for the investing public.” It conditions any ceasefire on “access to information,” reinforcing the majority’s view that it has been kept in the dark on key details.

And it ends with a warning: if there is no fair compromise and no information access, the majority is “more than ready to ramp up its efforts” again.

That is not a neutral arbiter talking. It is one camp in the fight trying to present itself as the responsible custodian of both family interest and public interest, while keeping all its options open.

The “adult in the room,” for now, is more likely a set of institutions than a single person. The courts can say no to certain tactics and punish contempt. The SEC can say yes or no to unusual meeting formats. Independent directors can resign, speak, or quietly resist. Institutional investors — including government pension funds — can choose how loudly to ask their own questions.

Whether a single figure emerges inside the family or the group to bridge the cousins’ positions is still unclear from the public record. There is, so far, no disclosed joint effort, just separate declarations.

Is Piki ‘back’ as head of the business?

In corporate paperwork, Piki never left.

At Lopez Inc., the February 27 resolution that tried to remove him was blocked by the court and has now been withdrawn. At Lopez Holdings, he remains chairman and CEO, as the 2025 annual report states. At First Philippine Holdings, he is chairman of the board, and the “no election” July meeting, approved by the SEC, means that the current board will stay on holdover until the dispute is resolved or a court orders elections. At First Gen, he is chairman and CEO, and the company’s definitive information statement for the May 28 annual general meeting lists him as among the nominees for director.

On the surface, therefore, nothing has changed in his titles. The ceasefire over the February 27 resolution removes a threat but does not create a new promotion. It returns the formal picture to what it looked like before the cousins went to war.

Below the surface, though, authority is not just about names on an org chart. It is also about how other power centers view those names.

In his May 15 statement, Piki leans on those other power centers. He says that in “discussing solutions,” he will continue to fulfill his fiduciary duties “to all shareholders” in the Lopez Group and will remain a “responsible steward” of the businesses, “particularly First Philippine Holdings, Inc. (FPH) and First Gen Corporation (First Gen) — which have institutional minority shareholders with significant economic interests.”

The majority at Lopez Inc. is still on record as saying it no longer trusts him. It still argues that the Prime Infra gas sale, the hydro joint venture, and the related “key-man” covenants and BDO standby letters of credit exposed the group to avoidable risks and made leadership changes too expensive. Those deals are still in place. Lopez Holdings’ latest Form 17A walks through the gas sale and how First Gen plans to use the proceeds to fund investments, while First Gen’s own filings explain the Prime Hydropower Energy Inc. (PHEI) transaction and the leadership-linked covenants as standard in project finance, requested by Prime Infra and lenders rather than devised by management.

Piki stresses that it was in fulfilment of these duties that he backed the agreements with the Prime Infra Group, pointing out that First Gen’s board, including cousin Manuel “Beaver” Lopez Jr., the KKR representative, and all independent directors, unanimously approved them.

If you are a shareholder or employee, that means the person who currently chairs the key companies still faces sustained, public criticism from the family bloc that holds most of the shares at the top. The ceasefire removes one immediate weapon from that bloc’s hands, but it does not convert them into allies.

What this means if you are watching from outside

For investors, the May 14 move offers limited comfort. There will be no snap change at the head of the family-holding company based on a February vote. The chain from Lopez Inc. down to the listed companies remains intact on paper. Annual meetings at FPH and First Gen will be held, even if one will be missing a crucial item.

But the deeper questions remain. How long will FPH operate with a board that has not been reelected? How will the Court of Appeals and the Mandaluyong court draw the line between family control rights and the protection of sitting officers who also lead listed companies? How often will the SEC be willing to bend meeting rules when a family dispute is the reason?

For institutions and funds, Piki’s statement is also a reminder that the contested provisions came with endorsements from outside the family. He describes the Change of Management Control clauses as a “vote of confidence” in him from Prime Infra, and says BDO Unibank showed a similar “vote of confidence” by issuing ₱24.75-billion standby letters of credit tied to his “continued and active involvement” in the FPH group.

For employees, the signal is that the companies will not be dragged into an overnight leadership vacuum at the top of the tree. The same names will sign the memos, at least for now. The tension shifts from “will my boss still be here tomorrow?” to “how long will the bigger fight last, and how will it affect the way the group thinks about risk, expansion, or sale of assets?”

For citizens who care about how large family-controlled business groups interact with public markets, this is another reminder that our corporate laws and regulations are being asked to handle situations they were not fully written for. The rules about annual meetings, independent directors, and SEC oversight were designed mainly to manage the gap between owners and managers. In the Lopez story, those rules are being tested by a battle among owners themselves.

That is why, despite the word “ceasefire” in the May 14 statement, the Lopez feud is far from over: the accusations against Piki remain on the record. The key Razon-related deals and their leadership-linked covenants remain in force. The court cases and the FPH “no-election” precedent remain active. The fight has simply moved from one column of the story — “we fired him” — to several others: who controls the rules, who controls the calendar, and who controls the future shape of the group.

The ceasefire on paper is a welcome pause in a noisy fight. But it is not yet a settlement. It shows a family majority that wants to look responsible while keeping its criticism intact, a chairman who still occupies all his formal posts while contesting his cousins’ moves in court, and regulators who are starting to draw their own lines in the sand.

In his own words, Piki remains “fully prepared for any outcome,” noting that the cases in the Mandaluyong court and at the SEC are “proceeding in due course” even as he focuses on leading FPH and First Gen “in delivering value through strategic projects and partnerships with reputable industry players.”

How those three forces — the majority, Piki’s camp, and the regulators — resolve their positions will decide whether this episode becomes just another chapter in a feud, or a turning point in how Philippine corporate governance handles family wars. – Rappler.com

Lala Rimando wrote about Philippine business, and managed newsrooms, including Newsbreak, ABS-CBN, Rappler, and Forbes, for over 25 years. She’s now based in La Union, taking care of her mom with dementia, and working on the multimedia biography of the late John Gokongwei.