THE Sandiganbayan has denied the government’s appeal on the dismissal of a 35-year-old forfeiture case against four properties of the family of President Marcos Jr. citing lack of evidence to show that they were part of the family’s alleged ill-gotten wealth.
The properties include the house and lot in Pandacan, Manila registered in the name of Heirs of Vicente Romualdez, the Currimao Back House covered by a title registered in the name of the late strongman Ferdinand E. Marcos, the Batac Museum, and the Batac Guest House.
The latter three are all located in the President’s home province in Ilocos Norte.
Associate Justice Alex L. Quiroz penned the 12-page resolution issued on July 22, 2022 that denied the motion for reconsideration filed by the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) represented by the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG).
Associate Justices Maria Theresa V. Mendoza-Arcega and Maryann E. Corpus-Mañalac concurred.
“Considering that the evidence already offered by the plaintiff during trial do not sufficiently establish its claims as to the properties mentioned above that are purportedly still within the Marcoses’ control, the Court is constrained to deny the plaintiffs Motion for Reconsideration dated 29 December 2019 as regards the said properties,” the anti-graft court’s Fourth Division declared.
However, the court noted that despite the dismissal of Civil Case No. 0002, the government had already won or taken over possession of most of the properties it listed in the case filed July 1987.
“Many of the properties subject of the complaint in this case, along with its subsequent amendments, have already been recovered by the government or transferred to third persons not involved herein,” the Sandiganbayan pointed out.
Based on the list submitted by the PCGG, there were only four properties still under the control of the Marcos family that were included in the case.
In its ruling, the Sandiganbayan clarified that it set aside technicalities to allow the government an opportunity to present additional evidence to strengthen its claim over the four properties but in a compliance dated April 25, 2022, Republic notified the court that it had nothing more to add as “all material and relevant documents and pieces of evidence for the instant case have already been presented during trial.”
To be sure, the government did not come away empty-handed and had in fact recovered most of the assets it has previously identified worth several billions of pesos.
Among these were the 111,415 shares held by the Philippine Long Distance and Telephone Company (PLDT) in Philippine Telecommunications Investment Corp (PITC) sold in 2006 to Metro Pacific Assets Holdings, Inc. for P25.2 billion. The proceeds of the sale went to a trust fund for the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program in the National Treasury.
Also recovered were 526 art pieces from the Metropolitan Museum of Manila Foundation which are now under safekeeping by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, the Marcos family’s peso and dollar deposits in Security Bank and Trust Company containing P934.62 million and $8.002 million which were turned over to the CARP account at the National Treasury, and a property in Talaga in Mariveles, Bataan which was auctioned off in 2000 and sold for P44 million with the proceeds likewise going to CARP.
In the list of surrendered properties subject of the case were assets surrendered to the government by former Ambassador Roberto Benedicto in 1993, including the rights to the franchise of the International Broadcasting Corp (IBC); land, relay stations, and provincial and radio stations all worth P3.074 billion; and three parcels of land in Bataan in the name of Piedras Petroleum Corp. with a combined value of P70.016 million.
Also thrown in were a 6,000 square-meter lot from Banahaw Broadcasting Corp (BBC) — Iligan City (P17.83 million), two lots with a combined area of 5,161 sqm from BBC-Legazpi City (P22.19 million), 5,952 sqm lot from BBC-Naga City (P19.046 million), BBC-DWAN Radio (P1.362 million); 12,445 shares in Oceanic Wireless Network Inc. (OWNI) (P13.63 million), and 4.16 million shares in Radio Philippine Network Inc (RPN-9) (P33.29 million).
Benedicto also agreed to “assign to the government all his rights, interest and/or participations, if any, in Radio Philippines Network (RPN) which operated TV-9, its seven provincial TV stations and seven provincial radio stations, as well as the Banahaw Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).
The turnover of the said assets was part of the compromise agreement between PCGG and Benedicto, a former law school classmate of the late dictator.
In return, the government agreed to lift sequestration orders issued on his remaining assets and granted absolute immunity to him, members of his family, and officers and employees of his corporations.
