Friday, June 18, 2010

News update Supreme Court to Sandigan: Revamp panel on Marcos wealth case

MANILA, Philippines - The Supreme Court (SC) ordered yesterday the Sandiganbayan to reconstitute its special division hearing the case on the forfeiture of $35 million in Marcos wealth deposited in a bank in New York.

Associate Justice Efren de la Cruz was named the division chairman in place of Presiding Justice Norberto Geraldez, who passed away last April 4.

De la Cruz has been member of the division since it was created in December 2008. It was De la Cruz who asked the SC to assign new members to their division following Geraldez’s death.

Associate Justice Teresita Diaz-Baldos remains as regular member, while Associate Justice Alex Quiroz was designated as new member of the division. Newly appointed Associate Justice Ma. Cristina Cornejo was also tapped as alternate member.

The SC said the order stemmed from a request of De la Cruz last month due to “pending incidents in the case which need to be resolved.”

When the special division was created, most division chairmen of the anti-graft court have inhibited from handling the case due to connections to parties involved.

Then Presiding Justice and First Division chair Diosdado Peralta, now SC associate justice, had distanced himself from the case because his wife, Court of Appeals Associate Justice Fernanda Lampas Peralta, was the assistant solicitor general during the Marcos administration.

Second Division chairman Associate Justice Edilberto Sandoval, now acting presiding justice of the anti-graft court, inhibited because the one who appointed him in the Sandiganbayan is implicated in the case.

Third Division chairman Associate Justice Francisco Villaruz Jr. inhibited because of an earlier court ruling barring him from participating in Marcos’s ill-gotten wealth case.

Villaruz was one of the signatories who asked to dispose the case.

Fourth Division’s Justice Gregory Ong had been mandated by the SC to inhibit from any case involving former first lady Imelda Romualdez-Marcos.

Fifth Division chairman Justice Maria Cristina Estrada refused to have any involvement in the case because she worked for Malacañang during the Marcos administration.

Records show that Marcos supposedly set up the account at Merrill Lynch in New York in 1972, using as dummy a Panamanian corporation named Arelma Foundation, Inc. with a $2 million deposit.

The account has since grown to more than $35 million.

In July 2000, the Presidential Commission on Good Government asked Merrill Lynch to turn over the Arelma assets to the Philippine government, proposing that they be placed in escrow with the Philippine National Bank. The Sandiganbayan had yet to rule on whether the assets belong to the government or to the Marcoses.

Merrill Lynch rejected the proposal, citing the existence of other claimants.The money in the account was also being claimed by at least 10,000 victims of human rights abuses during the Marcos regime.

A Hawaii court had awarded in 1995 the human rights victims $2 billion in a suit that they brought against the Marcos heirs.

It subsequently ruled that part of the award be taken from the Arelma assets.

The Philippine government opposed the judgment, also staking its claim to the money and arguing it was part of the $10 billion that Marcos stole from the country. It said the dispute over the money should be resolved in a Philippine court.

In 2008, the US Supreme Court dismissed in 2008 the Hawaii court ruling awarding the $35 million to the human rights victims. - By Edu Punay