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By Francis Earl A. Cueto, Reporter
THE Presidential Commission on Good Government
(PCGG) on Friday said it will take to the Supreme Court the battle
over the P220-million Marcos accounts that are still allegedly
deposited at the Security Bank and Trust Company.
The Sandiganbayan recently junked the
government’s petition to reverse its May 29, 2007 ruling which
stated that the PCGG and the Office of the Solicitor General
presented insufficient evidence to support its claim over the said
Marcos accounts.
The Sandiganbayan’s recent decision also
scored government lawyers for not presenting a witness and for
waiving their opportunity to cross-examine the bank’s witnesses.
The case on the matter was originally filed on
April 10, 1997.
“We will exhaust all remedies under the law
and we will go through the process. We are not giving this up and we
will exhaust all remedies,” PCGG Commissioner for Legal Affairs
Narciso Nario said.
The Sandiganbayan affirmed their earlier ruling
which dismissed the government’s case for lack of merit on the
ground that evidence presented by the bank proved the government’s
claim was based on spurious documents.
PCGG loses by one vote
The Sandiganbayan decision was issued by a
special division composed of five Sandiganbayan magistrates.
The government lost its case by a single vote as
Associate Justices Roland Jurado, Teresita Diaz-Baldos and Samuel
Martires ruled to dismiss the government’s motion for
reconsideration.
The two justices who dissented were Ma. Cristina
Cortez-Estrada and Norberto Geraldez.
“The issues raised by the plaintiff had
already been passed upon and discussed in detail by this Court in
its assailed decision. As such, we find no cogent or compelling
reason to reconsider our findings in the said decision,” the
court’s decision stated.
The PCGG alleged that Security Bank failed to
pay the balance of P220 million on the P981.41 million Marcos
deposits that it was supposed to turn over to the government.
The bank had admitted on October 29, 1987 that
it was holding P981.41 million in various accounts from the Marcos
family, some of which were dollar-denominated.
This admission resulted in Security Bank being
dropped as a defendant in a separate lawsuit (Civil Case no. 0002)
against the Marcoses and their associates.
Between January 13, 1988 through January 2,
1992, Security Bank turned over P775 million to government.
But after that, the bank refused to pay more,
saying that a report by a team of Central Bank and PCGG auditors
found out that the remaining P220 million were “fake telex
remittances” that were never received by the bank.
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