THE Sandiganbayan has denied the petition of Bank of Commerce seeking exemplary damages from the Philippine government for wrongfully impleading it in a case for recovery of ill-gotten wealth of the Marcos family.
Bank of Commerce has asked the anti-graft court to order the government to pay it punitive damages after it supposedly suffered injury and expenses after being wrongfully included as respondent in Civil Case No. 0181.
But the Sandiganbayan Second Division said: “Here, the Court sees no indication of bad faith whatsoever on the part of the plaintiff when it impleaded (Bank of Commerce) as a defendant in this suit. On the contrary, the plaintiff appears to have pursued such a course of action on the honest belief in the righteousness of its case.”
The December 16, 2021 decision was written by Associate Justice and Second Division chairperson Oscar C. Herrera and concurred in by Associate Justices Michael Frederick L. Musngi and Bayani H. Jacinto.
The Bank of Commerce was impleaded as an additional respondent in 2001 after it bought the assets and liabilities of the Traders Royal Bank (TRB), which issued peso and dollar-denominated bank certificates worth P96.03 million and $5.435 million, respectively.
The bank certificates were recovered among the “numerous crates of boxes, suitcases, bags, etc. containing jewelry, money, documents and other properties” brought by the Marcos family when they fled the country and landed in Honolulu, Hawaii on February 26, 1986.
When it was dragged into the case, Bank of Commerce said it “suffered great risk to its reputation and incurred expenses to defend its legal interests.”
While expressing sympathy with the government’s efforts to go after ill-gotten wealth, the bank said it had been unfairly implicated in the case and suffered injury in the process.
However, the Sandiganbayan noted that exemplary or punitive damages are intended to serve as a deterrent to serious wrongdoings and as vindication of undue sufferings.
It cited the pronouncement of the Supreme Court that to justify the award of exemplary damages, the wrongful act must be accompanied by bad faith.
“The Court finds absolutely no basis to conclude that the plaintiff acted in a wanton, fraudulent, reckless or malevolent manner,” the court added.
