THE Sandiganbayan has ordered the issuance of a writ of execution to enforce its July 18, 2023 resolution that awarded 60 percent of Lianga Bay Logging Co. Inc. to its workers under the Diatagon Labor Federation (DLF) on top of payment of back wages and benefits.
Respondent businessman Peter Sabido was also held liable to pay P1 million for moral damages, P1 million in exemplary damages, and P100,000 as the cost of the suit.
“Considering that no motion for reconsideration, notice of appeal, or any appropriate pleading has been filed by defendant Peter A. Sabido or any other parties in this case despite the lapse of the reglementary period, the resolution promulgated on July 18, 2023 …has already become final and executory,” the anti-graft court declared.
Associate Justice Maria Theresa V. Mendoza-Arcega penned the resolution with the concurrence of Associate Justices Rafael R. Lagos and Maryann E. Corpus-Mañalac.
Lianga Bay workers joined Civil Case No. 0024 on February 3, 1988 as third-party intervenors in the ill-gotten wealth complaint filed by the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) a year earlier.
Named respondents other than Sabido were his fellow businessmen Luis Yulo, Roberto Benedicto, and Nicolas Dehesa and the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos Sr. and his widow, former First Lady Imelda R. Marcos.
While the Sandiganbayan dismissed the government’s case against the Marcoses and the rest of the defendants on the ground that the evidence failed to prove the ill-gotten nature of the disputed assets, it upheld the claim of Lianga Bay Logging’s labor union.
The DLF tagged Sabido’s holdings in Lianga Bay Logging as ill-gotten wealth having been unlawfully obtained by Sabido’s late father Roberto Sabido who the workers described as a “crony of the former President.”
In support of its claim, the workers union presented the Stock Sale Agreement dated July 2, 1974 wherein the Georgia-Pacific International Corp (GPIC) sold 35,432 shares representing 60 percent of the logging firm to “employees and workers.”
Another document dated November 17, 1986 from the Fiscal Committee of the Lianga Bay Logging informed the PCGG that the workers’ union owned 34,647 or 57.5 percent of the company.
Sealing the issue of ownership was a letter dated September 18, 1986 from the GPIC confirming the sale to the workers and receipt of payment so that “all obligations were fulfilled.”
The Sandiganbayan held that its “meticulous examination of all the evidence submitted” points to the DLF as the beneficial and rightful owner of the 34,647 or 60 percent shareholdings of Lianga Bay Logging.
Neither Sabido and his co-respondents, nor the Republic, refuted the claim of the workers’ union.
The Sandiganbayan clarified that the workers’ 60 percent stake shall include all of Lianga Bay Logging’s “assets, resources, and intangibles” and that DLF members must be paid “retirement benefits, separation pay, insurance premiums, cooperative shares, unpaid salaries, wages and back wages, accrued savings, vacation and sick leaves, and bonuses.”
The total amount of benefits shall be determined by the workers’ union subject to be submitted to Lianga Bay Logging, PCGG, and the Office of the Solicitor General.
