Go ahead, prosecute Danding on coco levy — Su

The Supreme Court (SC) reversed yesterday the August 1998 dismissal by Ombudsman Aniano Desierto of the graft charges against businessman Eduardo Cojuangco and eight other people in connection with the coco levy funds.

Justice Sabino de Leon, who penned the 18-page decision of the five-member SC Second Division, said Desierto abused his authority when he junked the November 1974 case on the basis that it had already expired, having gone past the 10-year prescriptive period.

"The Ombudsman is hereby directed to proceed with the preliminary investigation. The task to determine and find whether probable cause exists properly belongs to the Ombudsman," De Leon reiterated.

He added: "The Ombudsman should have given the Solicitor General the opportunity to present his evidence and then resolve the case for purposes of preliminary investigation. Failing to do so, the Ombudsman acted with grave abuse of discretion."

Cojuangco, former Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile, Zamboanga Mayor Ma. Clara Lobregat, Rolando de la Cuesta, Jose Eleazer Jr., Jose Concepcion, Danilo Ursua, Narciso Pineda and Augusto Orosa were charged by the PCGG in February 1990 for alleged misuse of the coco levy funds.

The Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) had alleged that Cojuangco, now chairman of food and beverage giant SMC, used his influence to manipulate Coconut Industry Development Fund (CIDF) funds to siphon off P840 million to his own firm, the Agricultural Investors Inc.

The CIDF is one of the coco levy funds which has since ballooned to more than P100 billion, including interest. The coco levy funds, which imposed compulsory contributions from farmers, were aimed at "revitalizing" the industry.

Cojuangco, Enrile, Lobregat and the others were held criminally liable because they were members of the UCPB board of directors at the time. The government said they all had "personal interest or material interest in the transactions."

The state-run National Investment Development Corp. (NIDC) and the UCPB board, violating the duty of CIDF as administrator-trustee, caused the siphoning off of the CIDF funds to Cojuangco’s AII, said the PCGG.

De Leon sustained the argument of the Office of the Solicitor General that the suits were "imprescriptible" because these graft cases are very much like the ill-gotten cases where the government intends to recover questionable properties.

"We do not subscribe to the Ombudsman’s view that Presidential Decrees 961 and 1468 (Revised Coconut Industry Code) ipso facto (automatically) served to insulate the respondents (Cojuangco and the others) from prosecution."

"The legislative imprimatur allegedly granted by then President Marcos to the MOA is not necessarily inconsistent with the existence of a violation of RA 3019 (Anti-Graft Law)."