SC scraps Rose Baladjay forfeiture case petition

Supreme Court building. RYAN LEAGOGO/INQUIRER.net FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines–The Supreme Court has dismissed as moot and academic a petition by the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) to overturn an appellate court ruling that allowed three persons to intervene in two civil forfeiture cases against alleged investment racketeer Rose Baladjay in a Manila court.

The AMLC, the government’s top agency tasked with investigating and causing the prosecution of money laundering offenses, questioned the Court of Appeals (CA) ruling before the high court in 2010, but a Manila regional trial court (RTC) had ruled since then to forfeit the assets involved in the two cases in favor of the government.

Baladjay and her company, Multinational Telecommunications Investors Corp. (Multitel), were taken to court by the government for solicitation of money from people at high interest rates despite lack of authority. She also did not return the investments amounting to hundreds of thousands of pesos.

Last year, the CA upheld the lower court’s conviction of Baladjay on two counts of estafa.

It nullified and set aside the decision of Manila RTC Branch 24 on Jan. 10, 2008, which denied the bid of respondents Rafael Manalo, Grace Oliva and Freida Rivera-Yap to intervene in the civil forfeiture cases that the AMLC filed on July 18, 2003, against Baladjay.

The respondents said they had valid interest in the bank accounts of Baladjay.

In dismissing the AMLC petition, the Supreme Court’s second division said the case “ceases to present a justiciable controversy by virtue of supervening events, so that an adjudication of the case or a declaration on the issue would be of no practical value or use.”’

It cited as the “supervening event” the ruling made by the Manila RTC on the first civil case on Sept. 23, 2010, and on the second case on Feb. 11, 2011, which it amended on May 9, 2011. In both cases, the lower court ruled to forfeit the assets involved in favor of the government.

This “effectively rendered the essential issue in this case moot and academic, that is, whether or not respondents should have been allowed to intervene on the ground that they have legal interest in the forfeited assets,” said the Supreme Court ruling on June 4, which was penned by Associate Justice Estela Perlas-Bernabe.

The high court also noted that because of the RTC ruling, the AMLC had asked the court that it be excused from replying on its petition. It granted the motion on June 3 last year and then dismissed the petition for review on certiorari that the AMLC filed against the CA rulings dated May 21, 2009, and May 17, 2010.