Supreme Court of the Philippines in Manila (File photo by RICHARD A. REYES / Philippine Daily Inquirer)
MANILA, Philippines—After over three decades that the cases have been dragging, the Supreme Court has ordered the Sandiganbayan to dismiss the civil suits against Eduardo “Danding” Cojuangco due to violation of his constitutional right to speedy disposition of cases.
The case against Cojuangco was among the cases filed by the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) to recover the ill-gotten wealth of the Marcos family, subordinates, and business associates.
In July 1987, a civil suit against Cojuangco was filed. The complaint was amended three times, the last of which was in 1991. Then, in 1999, the Sandiganbayan subdivided the case into eight complaints. The cases are related to the coco levy funds.
Of the eight cases, Civil Cases 0033-A on the questionable purchase of First United Bank (now United Coconut Planters Bank) and acquisition of SMC shares of stock have been resolved.
Cojuangco took his case to the Supreme Court in 2019 after the six other cases remain pending before the Sandiganbayan. The cases have not even started a trial.
Cojuangco highlighted in his petition the fact that after 32 years, cases against him have not even reached trial state; “no justifiable reason in not allowing any of the cases to proceed to trial or at least include the same in the Sandiganbayan calendar for trial.”
PCGG in its comment said Cojuangco failed to seasonably assert his right to a speedy disposition of his case and failed to present evidence that the proceedings before the anti-graft court are marred by “vexatious, capricious, and oppressive delays or unjustified postponements of the trial.”
PCGG also blamed Cojuangco for filing dilatory motions aside from the fact that the cases are complex with voluminous records that need to be studied.
But the high court, in its April 21 decision made public November 11 said PCGG failed to support its claim that Cojuangco’s dilatory motions are among the cause of the inordinate delay of his cases before the Sandiganbayan.
On PCGG’s claims of voluminous records and complexities, the high court said “there is no elucidation in the PCGG’s pleadings or in the Sandiganbayan’s resolutions as to what specific issue is too complex or what voluminous records are involved with what particular motions that justify the delay.”
On the part of the Sandiganbayan, the high court observed that it has the “intolerable habit to delay the resolution of pending motions before it.”
It noted that the Anti-Graft Court took 14 years to resolve the PCGG’s motions for partial summary judgment in two of the six cases, five years on another case, and two years for two other civil suits while the appeals took five to 34 months to resolve.
The high court said it cannot fault Cojuangco for feeling hopeless when he filed his petition before them.
“Taken in its entirety, the acts of the Sandiganbayan shows a pattern constituting an abominable example of vexatious, capricious, and oppressive delay in the dispensation of justice that greatly prejudiced the constitutional rights of petitioner to due process and speedy disposition of cases,” the high court said.
The high court also added that PCGG failed to prove that no prejudice was suffered by the petitioner as a result of the delay.
“For the subject cases to proceed to trial at this point in time would certainly result to a very tilted judicial system against petitioner and would skew the fairness in hearing the subject matter of the cases,” the high court said noting that Cojuangco’s health condition has deteriorated when he filed his petition in 2019. Cojuangco died a year later.
The decision is penned by now-retired Associate Justice Edgardo delos Santos with concurrences from Associate Justice Marvic Leonen, Ramon Paul Hernando, Henri Jean Paul Inting, and Jhosep Lopez.
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