PCGG to meet en banc on Benedicto heirs payment

Chairman Camilo Sabio of the Presidential Commission on Good Government said yesterday they will hold a special en banc session Tuesday next week to discuss how to pay the heirs of the late Marcos associate Roberto Benedicto after the Supreme Court twice upheld a Sandiganbayan decision ordering the government to pay them more than P34 million.

"We will obey with the order of the courts," he told reporters in a telephone interview.

"We have no choice. That is the thing, so we are going to meet. We will have to find means how we are going to adhere to the ruling."

Sabio said they are now thinking where they can get the money to pay the 227 sequestered shares of Negros Occidental Golf and Country Club Inc. (NOGCCI).

Valued at P150,000 per share and registered in the name of Benedicto’s corporations, the shares would amount to P34,050,000.

Last Wednesday, the Supreme Court had denied with finality the government’s motion to reconsider its March 6, 2006 decision upholding the twin rulings of the Sandiganbayan on the disposition of the sequestered shares of Benedicto in NOGCCI.

In its March 8 decision penned by Associate Justice Cancio Garcia, the Supreme Court affirmed the anti-graft court’s order for government to pay Benedicto or his corporations the value of 227 shares of stock in the NOGCCI at P150,000 per share, and to recognize that such were not ill-gotten.

Benedicto, who died six years ago, entered into a compromise agreement with the PCGG that contained a general release clause, where the government agreed to lift the sequestration on the 227 NOGCCI shares, along with other Benedicto properties.

In that agreement, the PCGG acknowledged that it was within Benedicto’s capacity to acquire the shares out of his income from business and the exercise of his profession.

In a two-page resolution, the Supreme Court’s second division reaffirmed the compromise agreement executed by Benedicto and the PCGG on July 15, 1990, whereby 49-percent of his Swiss bank deposits in the amount of $31.9 million was given to the late Marcos associate and 51-percent to the state.

"The Court resolves to deny with finality (the motion for reconsideration), the basic issues raised therein having been duly considered and passed upon by the Court in the aforesaid decision, and no substantial argument having been adduced to warrant the reconsideration sought," the Supreme Court ruled.

The case is one of several suits involving ill-gotten or unexplained wealth that PCGG has filed with the Sandiganbayan.

The high court brushed aside the state’s claim of immunity from suit in a case that the state itself brought against Benedicto.

The SC said that the State’s consent to be sued is implied from the very act of entering into such contract, "breach of which on its part gives the corresponding right to the other party to the agreement."

"When the State enters into a contract, through its officers or agents, in furtherance of a legitimate aim and purpose and pursuant to constitutional legislative authority, whereby mutual or reciprocal benefits accrue and rights and obligations arise therefrom, the State may be sued even without its express consent, because by entering into a contract the sovereign descends to the level of the citizen," read the Supreme Court decision.

After it was created during the Aquino administration, the PCGG began issuing writs of sequestration against all business enterprises, entities and other properties, real and personal, registered in Benedicto’s name or in corporations in which he appeared to have controlling or majority interests.

Following the sequestration, PCGG representatives sat as members of the board of directors of NOGCCI, and the board passed sometime in October 1986 a resolution effecting a corporate policy change, consisting of assessing a monthly membership due of P150 for each NOGCCI share. — Sandy Araneta