The Sandiganbayan Centennial Building in Quezon City. (INQUIRER.net file photo)
MANILA, Philippines — The Sandiganbayan has allowed the admission of evidence in one of the remaining civil cases against deceased former President Ferdinand Marcos; his wife, former first lady Imelda Marcos; and their associates.
In a resolution dated Dec. 11, the antigraft court’s Fourth Division allowed 15 sets of documents to be admitted as evidence in Civil Case No. 0010 filed by the Presidential Commission on Good Governance (PCGG) in 1987.
The case was filed to recover and reconvey some P2.465 billion worth of properties belonging to the controversial Bataan Shipyard and Engineering Company Inc. (Baseco) or its subsidiaries.
The properties were sequestered by the PCGG in 1986 from Baseco, and its subsidiaries Philippine Dockyard Corp. and Baseco Drydock & Construction Co. Inc.
Although the case has been under trial for 36 years, only now did the court admit the 15 sets of documents as evidence.
The defendants earlier tried to block their admission, arguing that the documents were merely photocopies and that the plaintiff “failed to lay the basis for the admission of the same as secondary evidence.”
However, the court allowed their admission since they were marked as certified true copies of the original documents during the preliminary conferences.
The case is also part of what the PCGG calls the “Romualdez cluster,” or the group of cases for reconveyances and forfeiture that it filed against the former first lady’s relatives and friends.
Declared in default
As of September 2022, only 34 out of the 49 defendants had filed their answers to the 1987 complaint.
Already declared in default were Marcos Sr. and Imelda Marcos (1989); Hilario Ruiz, Arturo Pacificador, Joselito Manat, Ceres Manat, and Antonio Ezpeleta (1994); and Alfredo Romualdez in 2018.
Last year, the court rejected a bid to have the last seven defendants—Anthony Lee, Severino dela Cruz, Jose Fernandez, Jose Marcelo Jr., Gabriel Llamas, Mariano Balgua, and Jose Campos Jr.—declared in default.
The resolution was penned by Associate Justice Michael Frederick Musngi and concurred by Associate Justices Lorifel Pahimna and Maria Theresa Mendoza-Arcega.
In a separate Dec. 13 resolution, the court’s Fourth Division also allowed the inclusion of six exhibits in the records of Civil Case No. 0178, involving shares of stock in Eastern Telecommunications Philippines.