Lucio Tan gets back 4 firms

The Sandiganbayan ordered the government yesterday to lift a sequestration order on four firms owned by business tycoon Lucio Tan after the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) failed to prove that the seizure and control of the companies in 1986 had a legal basis.

In a 59-page joint decision in Civil Case Nos. 0096, 0097, 0098 and 0099, the anti-graft court’s fifth division ordered the government to cease further involvement in the control and management of Allied Banking Corp., Fortune Tobacco Corp., Foremost Farms and Shareholdings Inc.

"The Court finds and so holds that the questioned writs of sequestration were issued without the requisite prima facie factual foundation that the properties covered thereby are ‘ill-gotten’ wealth. There is sufficient reason to impel this Court to declare them as null and void and to terminate the role of government as conservator of the properties covered thereby," the court ruled.

The decision was signed by Associate Justice Teresita Diaz-Baldos. Associate Justices Roland Jurado and Ma. Cristina Cortez-Estrada, who chairs the fifth division, concurred with the decision.

The court, however, said the decision would not affect the separate forfeiture suit — Civil Case no. 0005 — filed by the government covering the same companies.

An elated Tan vowed to get back at the PCGG officials involved in the sequestration of his flagship companies.

"We won the case but we lost 20 years of opportunities," Tan told The STAR last night. "We will claim our 20-year loss from the PCGG, those officials responsible for these losses."

Tan specifically cited former PCGG chairman Jovito Salonga and his immediate successor, the late Ramon Diaz.

"Ramon Diaz has passed away so we will run after his estate. Jovy Salonga is still alive, we will go after him," Tan said.

"To those people who are still living, they need to pay us and for those who passed away already, we will run after their estates for our losses," he added.

Tan’s flagship companies were sequestered by the PCGG a few months after the 1986 EDSA revolution as the Chinese-Filipino businessman was one of the alleged business cronies of former President Ferdinand Marcos.

"We are not Marcos cronies. We have no connection with Marcos. We’re purely in business," Tan stressed.

The PCGG seized Allied Bank on June 19, 1986 on the strength of a writ signed by then PCGG chairman Salonga and commissioner Diaz.

On July 24, 1986, the PCGG also took control of Fortune Tobacco and Shareholdings Inc. based on writs of sequestration signed by commissioners Diaz and Quintin Doromal.

The last to be seized was Fortune Farms which was served a writ on Aug. 12, 1986 based on authority signed by Diaz and commissioner Mary Concepcion Bautista.

After the four companies were placed under PCGG sequestration, Tan said Allied Bank suffered at least three bank runs while Foremost Farms lost 11,000 hogs and Fortune suffered "big losses."

Tan and his co-petitioners filed an action in September 1986 asking the Supreme Court to nullify the sequestration orders. However, the high court referred the matter to the Sandiganbayan where the petitions were officially docketed as Civil Case Nos. 0096 to 99 on Feb. 15, 1990.

In his petitions, Tan challenged the PCGG’s takeover of the firms on the grounds that the writs were void because they were signed by only two members of the commission.

The writs, he added, had lapsed into ineffectivity for lack of judicial confirmation that the properties were indeed "ill-gotten."

Moreover, the writs were issued despite the absence of a prima facie evidence that the subject firms constitute ill-gotten wealth.

The Sandiganbayan overruled the first argument, noting that the signatures of two PCGG commissioners were enough to make the writs valid. It likewise ruled that the writs did not expire because the PCGG filed Civil Case No. 0005 within the required six-month period from the ratification of the 1987 Constitution.

The court, however, found merit in the third argument raised by Tan and his co-petitioners, agreeing there was nothing in the 190 pieces of documentary evidence submitted by the government that supported the issuance of the writs of sequestration.

In fact, it pointed out that in the case of Foremost Farms, the only meeting regarding its sequestration was held on the very same day the order was issued.

The graft court said this "bolsters the apprehension that there was truly no deep discussion on the basis of issuing such sequestration order.

"Inasmuch as the sequestration tends to impede or limit the exercise of proprietary rights by private citizens, it should be construed strictly against the State. Sequestration is an extraordinary, harsh and even severe remedy. It should be confined to its lawful parameters and exercised with due regard in the words of its enabling laws to the requirements of fairness, due process and justice," the court said. — With Marichu Villanueva