PCGG informer wants P6.25-billion reward

A man claiming to be an informer of the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) is asking the Sandiganbayan to award him P6.25 billion as reward for helping the government recover 111,415 of ill-gotten shares in the Philippine Telecommunications Investment Corp. (PTIC).

In a five-page Notice of Informer’s Charging Lien, Danilo Lihaylihay told the anti-graft court that as a government informer he is entitled to a 25-percent informer’s reward out of the recovered ill-gotten asset as provided in Republic Act 2338, the Informers Rewards Law.

Lihaylihay said he is the informer-on-record in the tax and ill-gotten wealth cases of former President Ferdinand Marcos by virtue of a sworn statement he had filed with the Bureau of Internal Revenue and the PCGG on March 11, 1987; April 6, 1991 and April 17, 1991.

The PTIC case was one such case where he had helped the government as an informer, he added.

Lihaylihay told the Sandiganbayan the P6.25 billion he is asking for is equivalent to 27,853 shares in PTIC.

His credibility as an informer was boosted by the fact that he was one of the beneficiaries of Marcos’s ill-gotten wealth, having been a shareholder of 277 Class "A" preferred shares in the Philtranco Service Enterprises Inc. (formerly Pantranco South Express).

The company was owned by Marcos and his immediate family, he added.

Documents he had submitted to the court show that since 1986, he has been trying to claim his 25-percent informer’s reward for the various ill-gotten wealth cases against Marcos and his cronies, Lihaylihay said.

Earlier, Dennis Taningco, former PCGG special counsel and government solicitor, had also asked the Sandiganbayan to segregate one percent of the proceeds from the sale of the recovered 111,415 PTIC shares as his attorney’s lien for handling the forfeiture case.

Taningco could get P258 million from the sale of the recovered shares valued to be between P25 billion and P29 billion.

In a notice of attorney’s lien which he furnished the Sandiganbayan’s Sheriff’s Office, Taningco said since it appears there is no objection from the adverse parties, the attorney’s lien of one percent of the recovered shares should be segregated and placed at the disposal of the court.

PTIC was the single biggest stockholder in the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) during the Marcos administration.

In his six-page Notice of Attorney’s Lien, Taningco said he was assigned as special counsel to the PCGG in August 1998. He handled all the necessary preparation for the forfeiture case that was docketed as Civil Case No. 00 02, until December 2001 when he was replaced as trial lawyer by Tomas Evangelista, who completed the presentation of evidence, he added.

In 2002, the Sandiganbayan issued a decision which was adverse to the government’s stand, Taningco said.

Evangelista, with "encouragement" from Taningco then prepared a petition to elevate the case to the Supreme Court.

Last Jan. 20, the Supreme Court reversed the Sandiganbayan ruling and ruled in favor of the government after declaring the shares as ill-gotten.

Last Dec. 18, the Sandiganbayan issued an eight-page resolution ordering the transfer of the PTIC shares to the government.

In its resolution, the anti-graft court ordered the corporate secretary of PTIC to cancel the 111,415 shares registered in the name of Prime Holdings Inc. and to issue new certificates in the name of the Republic of the Philippines.