MANILA, Philippines—The Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) is having second thoughts about going after a property estimated to be worth US$100 million owned by a Marcos crony in Texas.

PCGG commissioner Ricardo Abcede said the agency’s American lawyers advised them that going after the property of the late Jose Yao Campos would go against the settlement agreement signed between Campos and the government in 1987.

“That was the advice we got from our American lawyers,” Abcede said.

He explained that the government had agreed in the settlement agreement that the properties Campos listed in 1987 were the only properties that were supposedly purchased with ill-gotten wealth.

Reneging on agreement

“So, to go after the property would go against the settlement,” Abcede said.

Abcede noted that Marcos human rights victims had tried to go after these properties, which are believed to contain oil deposits, located in Tarrant County and with an area of more than 4,000 acres. However, the court dismissed their petition.

As this developed, the Sandiganbayan yesterday dismissed the remaining case filed against a former chair of the Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP) accused of being a dummy of the Marcoses, citing the immunity from suit granted to him for being a government witness in several cases against former President Ferdinand Marcos and his wife Imelda.

Case dismissed

In a resolution, the Sandiganbayan 5th Division dismissed the 22-year-old case against Placido Mapa Jr., a co-accused of the Marcoses and Imelda’s brother Benjamin “Kokoy” Romualdez in Civil Case No. 0035, a forfeiture case.

The court found merit in Mapa’s motion to dismiss, where he argued that the PCGG had granted him immunity from suit in exchange of his testimony against the Marcoses.

Mapa also said the Supreme Court itself had affirmed PCGG’s authority to grant him immunity.

The case filed in 1987 accused Mapa of being a dummy of the Marcoses and Romualdez by allegedly helping them amass ill-gotten wealth.

The court also cited that two cases against Mapa-Criminal Case No. 19874 and Civil Case No. 0012-had been dismissed by the Sandiganbayan “based on his immunity.”

The court said it had “determined the applicability of Mapa’s immunity, both criminal and civil, embodied in the Immunity Agreement it had with the PCGG and which clearly constitutes a sufficient basis for dismissal of the instant case against him.” With a report from Edson C. Tandoc Jr.