Cruz heirs seek dismissal of PCGG case

MANILA, Philippines—The heirs of the late Roman Cruz Jr. have asked the Sandiganbayan to finally dismiss the Presidential Commission on Good Government’s decades-old ill-gotten wealth case against Cruz, claiming that the state had failed to prove that Cruz was an associate of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos.

They also urged the court to order the dismissal of the complaint on the ground that the PCGG lacked the jurisdiction to prosecute Cruz as the latter was “not a close associate” of the Marcoses.

The late Cruz was the chair and general manager of the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS), the state-run pension fund, and president and chair of Philippine Airlines (PAL) and executive officer of the now-defunct Commercial Bank of Manila (ComBank) when the latter two corporations were majority-owned by the GSIS during the Marcos dictatorship.

State prosecutors claimed that Cruz took advantage of his government positions to commit various crimes, including misappropriation and theft of public funds and plunder.

Marcos himself was accused of ordering and approving the allegedly illegal transactions entered into by Cruz which included the alleged purchase of an overvalued property in San Francisco, California, using $10.65 million of GSIS funds and of four overpriced Airbus 300 aircraft for PAL.

The heirs first sought a reversal of the antigraft court’s May 29, 2013, resolution upholding the information against Cruz. The court dismissed the petition.

In a motion for reconsideration, the heirs again questioned the PCGG’s jurisdiction on the ground that it lacked the element needed to acquire jurisdiction: Cruz’s alleged close association with the Marcoses.—Cynthia D. Balana