THE Sandiganbayan has dismissed a graft charge against businessman Teodoro Lim concerning a 457-square meter warehouse in Quezon City whose existence was debated in court for many years after it was demolished in 1993.
In a resolution dated November 23, 2023, the anti-graft court’s Seventh Division granted the Motion to Quash filed by defendant Lim and ordered the case against him dismissed.
Associate Justice Zaldy V. Trespeses penned the ruling with the concurrence of Associate Justices Ma. Theresa Dolores C. Gomez-Estoesta and Edgardo M. Caldona.
Based on the case filed by the Ombudsman in 2000, the warehouse did not exist so that the P3.29 million paid to private defendants in 1993 for its demolition caused injury to the government.
The 457-sqm structure had to be removed because it stood in the path of the C3 Road Project when it traversed Sgt. Esguerra Street in Barangay Manresa, San Jose, Quezon City.
The Ombudsman’s findings were based on a report of government auditors whose onsite inspection found only a smaller structure measuring between 240 to 309 square meters. According to the audit team, the demolished structure could not have existed in the same address since the lot only had a total area of 501 square meters.
On the other hand, if the smaller warehouse is a surviving portion of the 457 sqm building that was demolished, auditors and prosecutors said the payment should not have been based on the entire floor area.
In an 86-page Decision promulgated on April 12, 2019, the Sandiganbayan convicted former Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) project manager Francisco Reyes, former Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) Appraisal Committee chairman Robert Nacianceno, former Quezon City Engineer Alfredo Macapugay, former MMDA Real Property Assessment Service director Ramon Mateo, and former QC assistant city assessor Dante Viloria guilty of violation Section 3 (e) of RA 3019 or the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act.
Also convicted were businessmen and private defendants Margarito Chan and Dickson Lim.
The anti-graft court sustained the findings of COA auditors and Ombudsman investigators that the DPWH was made to cough up money for the demolition of a structure that was never there.
Three other defendants, assistant QC engineer Benjamin Malinao and private defendants Teodoro Lim and Florence Co Lim remained at large.
Aggrieved, Reyes, Nacianceno, Macapugay, Mateo, Villoria, Chan, and Dickson Lim challenged their conviction before the Supreme Court, insisting that the warehouse existed until it was demolished by the DPWH.
In its February 8, 2023 decision in the Villoria case, the High Court reversed the Sandiganbayan ruling, saying it overlooked or mis-appreciated facts and circumstances that tended to show that the warehouse, in fact, used to exist before the road project made its removal necessary.
The SC highlighted the incompatible argument of the prosecution where the information alleged that the warehouse never existed or that if it did, it was smaller than 457 sqm.
If the structure existed before, the SC pointed out, the case has no basis since the key elements of the graft charge could not be proven rendering the information defective.
In dismissing the case against Lim, the Sandiganbayan said it is bound by the SC’s pronouncement that the warehouse did exist.
“The findings in Villoria which conclusively established the existence of the subject warehouse, destroy the prima facie truth accorded to the allegations of the information based on the hypothetical admission thereof, viz, that the warehouse owned by Servy Realty subject of the expropriation does not exist. Thus, the court posits that continuing the case against accused Lim would be a waste of time and a useless act,” the Sandiganbayan said.