MANILA, Philippines?The anti-graft court Sandiganbayan denied a motion seeking the dismissal of the forfeiture case against the youngest sister of former first lady Imelda Marcos.

In a resolution released Tuesday, the court's Fifth Division junked the motion to dismiss filed by Conchita Romualdez-Yap and her husband, retired Gen. Edon Yap, over Civil Case No. 0035, where her brother Benjamin "Kokoy" Romualdez has been named one of the defendants.

Romualdez-Yap and her husband filed in September 2008 a motion to dismiss the 23-year-old case, saying that the long period that the case awaited pre-trial violated their right to a speedy trial.

The prosecution, however, blamed the defendants for filing numerous petitions and motions that delayed the proceedings.

But in junking the motion to dismiss, the court said: "While the court commiserates with the plight of the herein defendants, there is no reason compelling enough to grant the instant motion."

In the original case the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) filed in July 1987, the government sought to recover the alleged ill-gotten wealth the defendants amassed through "misappropriation and theft of public funds, plunder of the nation's wealth, extortion, blackmail, bribery, embezzlement and other acts of corruption, betrayal of public trust and brazen abuse of power."

The PCGG amended the complaint thrice afterward: on August 20, 1987, on February 9, 1988 and again on October 15, 2001.