Ex-NBI chief’s assets forfeited

Reversing a 1991 Sandiganbayan decision, the Supreme Court (SC) ordered yesterday the seizure of properties illegally acquired by Jolly Bugarin, director of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) during the Marcos administration.

Voting 8-2 with five abstentions, the tribunal ruled that the anti-graft court has to determine which properties of Bugarin must be confiscated.

The SC said Bugarin could not have acquired P2.1 million worth of properties because his lawful income as NBI director from 1967 to 1980 was just P766,548.

"His lawful income for the said period being only P766,548, the same was grossly insufficient to finance the acquisition of his assets for the said period whose aggregate cost was P2.1 million," read an excerpt from the SC decision.

In reversing the Sandiganbayan decision that absolved Bugarin, the SC said it was not satisfied with his defense that he funded his real property acquisitions and other investments out of his lawful income as NBI director and other legitimate sources of financing.

"Bugarin’s properties acquired from 1968 to 1980 which were out of proportion to his lawful income should be forfeited in favor of the government for failure of Bugarin to show, to the Court’s satisfaction, that the same were lawfully acquired," said the court.

"The gross disparity would all the more be emphasized had there been evidence of his actual family and personal expenses and tax payments. Let this case be remanded to the Sandiganbayan for proper determination of properties to be forfeited in the government’s favor."

In the 17-page decision, Chief Justice Hilario Davide wrote: "A plain reading of the Sandiganbayan’s decision exposed manifest errors and misapprehension of facts, which impelled it to pore over the evidence extant from the records."

When President Corazon Aquino took over in 1986, the Presidential Commission on Good Government estimated Bugarin’s real and personal properties at P6.3 million.

The SC said Bugarin "amassed wealth" amounting to P2.1 million between 1968 and 1980 or P1.7 million and shareholdings worth P464,580.

However, Bugarin said in his defense that he acquired all these properties together with is wife even before he became director of the NBI.

Bugarin declared as part of his income allowances from the Dangerous Drugs Board, the National Police Commission, the Central Bank, and the law firm of San Juan Africa Gonzales and San Agustin.

The justices who voted to seize Bugarin’s illegally acquired properties were Davide and Associate Justices Jose Melo, Jose Vitug, Leonardo Quisumbing, Arturo Buena, Consuelo Ynares-Santiago, Angelina Sandoval–Gutierrez and Antonio Carpio.

Dissenting were Associate Justices Bernardo Pardo and Santiago Kapunan, while Justices Josue Belosillo, Reynato Puno, Vicente Mendoza, Artemio Panganiban and Sabino de Leon abstained.