Aquino attacks Sandigan ruling

MANILA, Philippines—President Benigno Aquino III Tuesday greeted with incredulity the Sandiganbayan’s approval of the plea bargain between former military comptroller Carlos Garcia and special prosecutors of the Office of the Ombudsman over Garcia’s P303-million plunder case.

“I’m wondering how the Sandiganbayan arrived at this kind of decision. It’s like as if (the anti-graft court) was in a vacuum,” the President told reporters after attending the 112th anniversary of the Commission on Audit in Quezon City.

Mr. Aquino wondered whether the anti-graft court had listened to the testimonies of witnesses during congressional hearings on the controversial plea bargain.

“Didn’t one of the special prosecutors say that had they known there was this kind of evidence (against Garcia), they wouldn’t have pushed for this plea bargain?” he said.

“So how can you not be surprised here?” Mr. Aquino added.

The Sandiganbayan said it approved the deal because Garcia had complied with its conditions—pleading guilty to the lesser offenses of direct bribery and facilitating money laundering, and transferring P135.43 million of his and his family’s assets to the government.

Even before the anti-graft court approved the deal, Garcia was able to walk out of jail last December after posting P60,000 bail.

The Sandiganbayan said weak evidence against Garcia would have led to his acquittal.

Motion for reconsideration

Malacañang Tuesday decided to ask the Sandiganbayan’s Second Division to reconsider its resolution approving the plea bargain.

“The decision is to file a motion for reconsideration within the (allowable) period of 15 days,” Justice Secretary Leila de Lima said after meeting with Solicitor General Jose Anselmo Cadiz.

The President has been vocal about his opposition to the plea bargain deal and raised the matter in assailing then Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez, who was facing an impeachment trial in the Senate. Gutierrez resigned last week.

Mr. Aquino said that once he learned of the Sandiganbayan ruling, which came a few minutes after he arrived from a trip to Indonesia on Monday, he communicated with Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa, Cadiz and De Lima to ask them to “find what else can be done.”

Three resolutions

De Lima said the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) would file a consolidated motion for reconsideration asking the Sandiganbayan to reconsider all its three resolutions—the approval of the plea bargain, the dismissal of the OSG motion to intervene and the motion for the inhibition of Sandiganbayan Presiding Justice Edilberto Sandoval.

“We had an independent discussion but I think the President will support us,” Cadiz told reporters.

Cadiz said the motion for reconsideration would argue that the “Office of the Solicitor General has the right to intervene under the statute, that the OSG could represent the republic in this case, that the special prosecutor failed to discharge her duties, and that the evidence (against Garcia) is strong.”

Cadiz said they decided on a motion for reconsideration instead of immediately elevating the case to the Supreme Court because of the risk of the petition being dismissed “because we have not exhausted our remedies.”

‘Consummation of pabaon’

The head of the Senate blue ribbon committee blasted the anti-graft court’s ruling, saying it was a “consummation” of the so-called pabaon (send-off gift) system for top military officials.

“The decision is lamentable because it has, in effect, paved the way for the consummation of the most controversial and anomalous pabaon in the graft-ridden system in the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), which is now the subject of the Senate investigation,” Sen. Teofisto Guingona III said in a statement.

In his testimonies at the blue ribbon committee early this year, former military budget officer George Rabusa said three former AFP chiefs of staff were given a total of more than P250 million in send-off gifts upon their retirement. Rabusa said the funds came from a military slush fund.

“The move by the Sandiganbayan is a major setback in our people’s bid to recover their money. It is also a major setback in our quest to rid the AFP of the culture of corruption. Worse, the court may have sent a signal to unscrupulous elements that they can get away with this pabaon scheme,” Guingona said.

Guingona noted that the ruling allowed the former military comptroller to walk away with some P165 million allegedly stolen from government coffers. He pointed out that Garcia was accused of pocketing P303 million, but was required to return only P135.433 million to the government.

Prevent re-arraignment

Two lawyers said the government ought to act swiftly and bring the case to the Supreme Court to prevent the re-arraignment of Garcia for the lesser offenses he pleaded guilty to and the promulgation of the case by the Sandiganbayan.

Theodore Te and Arno Sanidad said questioning the validity of the plea bargain agreement and asking the high court to annul it would enable the administration to hold Garcia accountable.

“They should bring it up to the Supreme Court as soon as possible and question the validity of the plea bargain,” said Sanidad, one of the private prosecutors who successfully convicted former President Joseph Estrada of plunder in 2007.

Grossly disadvantageous

Te said the OSG could argue before the Supreme Court that the plea bargain should be nullified because it was, for one, “grossly disadvantageous to the people.”

“There would be no double jeopardy if the Supreme Court annuls the plea bargaining agreement because the plea would be void. It would go back to plunder and Garcia goes back to jail,” Te said.

De Lima said there had been many “facts, views, arguments, and perspectives” revealed not only at the Sandiganbayan hearings but also at the hearings conducted by the House of Representatives and the Senate, which had issued resolutions that “concluded that indeed the plea bargain was irregular.”

De Lima acknowledged that lawyers like Te had suggested to her remedies for the government to be able to hold Garcia accountable for the ill-gotten wealth he allegedly amassed while serving as military comptroller.

With the approval of the plea bargain, the Sandiganbayan might schedule Garcia’s re-arraignment and sentencing for the direct bribery case.

“So everything might become too late if a more urgent remedy is not taken. But that has to be studied very carefully, what is the better remedy,” De Lima said.

While the rules of court state that all legal remedies should first be exhausted, De Lima said among the exceptions to the general rule was in cases of “extreme urgency or the matter involved is of utmost importance or of utmost public interest.”

Why it’s urgent

Te was apparently more gung ho and believed that the risky move of bringing up the case to the Supreme Court would prove to be the better option.

Garcia has to be re-arraigned because he will be pleading to two lesser offenses, after having been initially charged with plunder, Te said.

The promulgation happens when the court renders a plea judgement on Garcia.

“I predict the sentence will be ‘time served,’ that is, the amount of time in detention. So he goes scot-free. That is why I am insisting it is urgent,” Te said.

Sanidad said there was no need for a plea bargain because even if the evidence for plunder was weak, Garcia could have been charged with the lesser offenses that come with being accused of plunder.

Special complex crime

“Plunder is a special complex crime. There are various other predicate crimes for which he can be convicted. The premise that has been coming out was that Garcia cannot be convicted because the evidence against him for plunder was weak. Granted that plunder cannot be proven, there are other crimes for which he can be convicted because they have the evidence,” Sanidad said.

He said that he learned from the Estrada plunder trial that this crime was difficult to prove without a whistle-blower.

“In his case, Garcia’s wife (Clarita) was herself the whistle-blower,” Sanidad said, referring to Clarita’s written admission before a US Customs official that she and her husband had received money from government suppliers.

Wife’s admission binding

Former Ombudsman Simeon Marcelo, who filed the plunder case against Garcia, said he was “saddened” by the Sandiganbayan’s resolution because he believed the government’s evidence was strong.

Marcelo, like Sanidad, said Clarita’s admission was binding on her and her husband, such that the government prosecutors need not produce the suppliers because Clarita already admitted that her husband received money from suppliers.

The money seized from the Garcias’ sons was the “corpus delicti,” Marcelo said.

He believes that the Garcia case is not a lost cause. “There’s still the Supreme Court. As they say, it isn’t over until the fat lady sings,” Marcelo said. With a report from Christian V. Esguerra