MANILA, Philippines — In another blow to the government’s efforts to seize the alleged ill-gotten wealth of the Marcoses, the Sandiganbayan has dismissed a P200-billion forfeiture case against dictator Ferdinand Marcos, his widow and their children due to insufficient evidence.
This was the fourth civil case against the Marcoses and their cronies that the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG), the agency tasked with recovering the dictator’s ill-gotten wealth, had lost this year.
The government failed to recover a staggering P303.31 billion in illegally amassed wealth from the Marcos family and the associates so far this year.
‘Mere photocopies’
Citing grounds similar to the dismissal of the earlier cases, the antigraft court’s three-member Fourth Division unanimously ruled on Monday that “the bulk” of documentary evidence submitted by government prosecutors were “mere photocopies, most of which are barely readable.”
“Even if the court were to defy the best evidence rule, it still could not fully ascertain the contents of these documents and make an intelligent evaluation,” the court said.
Of around 200 documents submitted by government prosecutors, only 24 were original copies.
“On a final note, the court acknowledges the atrocities committed during martial law under the Marcos regime and the ‘plunder’ committed on the country’s resources,” the ruling said.
“However,” it added, “absent sufficient evidence that may lead to the conclusion that the subject properties were indeed ill-gotten by the Marcoses, the court cannot simply order the return of the same to the national treasury.”
The 58-page decision on Civil Case No. 0002 filed in 1987 was written by Associate Justice Alex Quiroz. Associate Justices Maria Theresa Mendoza-Arcega and Maryann Corpus-Mañalac concurred.
Losing streak
Among the alleged ill-gotten assets the PCGG had wanted to seize were around P976 million in bank deposits in Security Bank and Trust Company and another P711 million in Traders Royal Bank; P1.6 billion shares of stock in Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT); $292 million in foreign bank deposits; and $98 million in investments in foreign banks, financial houses and industrial, mining, and other corporations.
The PCGG also went after investments in real properties in New York and London; several million pesos worth of residential property and agricultural land in Leyte province; 177 paintings; $8.9 million in US currency and P27 million in Philippine currency along with jewelry, time deposit certificates, bearer certificates and other documents in 42 crates, plus a separate cache of jewelry worth P236 million that were all taken by the Marcoses to Honolulu, Hawaii, when they fled Malacañang at the height of the 1986 People Power Revolution.
In addition, there were P14 million worth of “vanity items” such as jewelry, medallions, perfumes and gowns in 24 boxes and suitcases they had abandoned in the Palace.
The PCGG said the value of the assets were so disproportionate to the lawful income of the Marcos couple—P8.14 million, which Marcos declared as his net income from 1960 to 1984 and Imelda Marcos’ net income of P2 million as governor of Metropolitan Manila and minister of human settlements.
Marcos children
It said the Marcos children also “actively collaborated” with their parents in confiscating and concealing these assets.
The government lost three other forfeiture cases over the last five months.
In August, the antigraft court’s Second Division dismissed a P102-billion case, also filed in 1987, against the Marcos couple and their cronies led by Roberto Benedicto.
The Sandiganbayan said the PCGG “miserably failed to adduce evidence” to hold the couple liable for over three decades that the case was pending. It then chastised the PCGG for presenting weak evidence.
“In civil cases, the party making allegations has the burden of proving them by a preponderance of evidence. In addition, the parties must rely on the strength of their own evidence, not upon the weakness of the defense offered by their opponent,” the court said.
Marcos cronies
In September, the same division junked a P1.052-billion civil case filed in 1988 against former ambassador Bienvenido Tantoco, several of his relatives and Dominador Santiago for supposedly acting as dummies for the Marcoses in acquiring assets during the martial law regime.
A month later, the PCGG lost a P267.37-million case against the Marcoses and associates Fe and Ignacio Gimenez.
The Sandiganbayan’s Fourth Division said then that the PCGG violated the “best evidence rule,” which mandates that original documents, not just copies, must be presented.
The PCGG early this month won Civil Case No. 0009, when the Sandiganbayan’s Third Division ordered the return of billions worth of assets to the government from Marcos dummies Jose L. Africa and Manuel H. Nieto Jr.
There are still 51 civil cases pending in the Sandiganbayan, according to PCGG data. Of the total, seven are forfeiture cases, 39 are for reconveyance, restitution, accounting and damages, and five “other cases.” –WITH A REPORT FROM INQUIRER RESEARCH INQ