SC asked to reconsider ruling on PTIC

Businessman Alfonso Yuchengco asked the Supreme Court yesterday to reconsider its Jan. 20 ruling that declared the 111,415 shares of the Philippine Telecommunications Investment Corp. (PTIC), a holding company which formerly owned the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT), as ill-gotten.

In a 75-page motion for reconsideration filed through his lawyer Ramon Quisumbing, Yuchengco and Y Realty Corp. also asked the High Court to remand the case to the Sandiganbayan.

In its ruling, the SC forfeited in favor of the government the 111,415 shares of the PTIC, registered under the name of the Cojuangco-led Prime Holdings Inc. (PHI).

The Yuchengco group is claiming ownership of about six percent of the disputed PTIC shares, saying that they were forced to relinquish the shares to the Cojuangcos through the coercion of the late President Ferdinand Marcos.

Quisumbing said the Sandiganbayan erred when it ruled that the Yuchengcos had waived their right to present evidence after Yuchengco failed to attend three hearings.

Quisumbing stressed that the presentation of evidence was crucial in proving that Yuchengco made payments to two PTIC stockholders for the purchase of the six percent shares in PTIC and that Prime Holdings Inc. was a dummy company of the Marcoses.

These shares were claimed by the government from the estate of the late businessman Ramon Cojuangco and his wife Imelda, Prime Holdings Inc. and Mrs. Imelda Marcos.

The PTIC, which was controlled by the Cojuangco and Yuchengco groups, was the biggest shareholder in PLDT with 28 percent stake before it sold its holdings to the First Pacific group, represented by Manuel Pangilinan.

Court records showed that Prime Holdings was ordered sequestered on May 9, 1986, but its sequestration was voided by the Sandiganbayan in 1993 on the ground that the PCGG’s order had only one signature and the suit against the Cojuangcos was initiated after the six-month period prescribed by the Constitution.

Prime Holdings was put up on Oct. 5, 1977 by incorporators Jose Campos Jr., Rolando Gapud, Renato Lirio, Ernesto Abalos and Gervacio Gaviola.

The SC said the simultaneous divestment of three of Cojuangco’s close relatives of their shares in PTIC was authorized by their principal, the late President Marcos.— Jose Rodel Clapano