'Witnesses in Marcos ill-gotten wealth cases distrust OSG'

MANILA, Philippines – State and other potential witnesses are reportedly losing interest in helping recover the Marcos ill-gotten wealth due to the failure of Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) lawyers to show enthusiasm or trustworthiness in litigating cases.

Sources at the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) said a serious cause for concern among them and PCGG insiders is that defense lawyers of the Marcoses and their cronies have started calling for OSG lawyers to be the lead counsels for the PCGG in the wealth recovery cases.

“They prefer OSG lawyers to be the lead counsels of PCGG in the recovery cases, which is very mysterious for some of us,” sources told The STAR.

Earlier, PCGG chairman Camilo Sabio had said the commission was bound to retain the OSG as lead counsel in the ill-gotten wealth recovery cases.

He said the PCGG was mandated to keep OSG lawyers as their lead counsel despite some problems in their performance in past cases, especially those dismissed by courts.

Sabio issued the statement when asked if his office would seek a change in legal representation, especially in graft complaints filed by the PCGG against businessman Eduardo Cojuangco Jr., the late President Ferdinand Marcos, his wife Imelda Marcos, and six others.

Their case involves the alleged diversion of some P840 million in coconut levy funds from a controversial coconut plantation development project in Bugsuk Island, Palawan in the 1980s.

The government stands to lose over P13 billion they are seeking from Cojuangco and the Marcoses if they lose the case.

The Sandiganbayan First Division ordered the case removed from its docket last Nov. 14 because of the PCGG’s alleged failure to pursue the case.

The case’s removal was reportedly brought about by the failure of the OSG lawyers to show up in pre-trial meetings.

While it ordered Civil Case No. 0033-C or the Bugsuk Island project removed from their docket, the first division had left open an option for the government to re-file the complaint when it was ready to pursue it again.

At the time of resolution, the anti-graft court division noted that there has not been a single hearing on the case since the original complaint was filed in July 1987.

“Considering that nothing had been done by the parties to pursue this case notwithstanding the lapse of more than eight years, the court deems the parties to have abandoned this case and hereby dismisses this sub-divided complaint, without prejudice to the re-filing thereof,” they said.

The complaint stated that Cojuangco, Marcos, Imelda, and six other individuals conspired to divert some P840.79 million from the coconut levy drawn from the Coconut Industry Development Fund (CIDF) for their own gain.

The CIDF, created on Nov. 14, 1974 through Presidential Decree 582, was a permanent fund for the development of hybrid coconut seed nut farm to supply high-yielding hybrid seed nuts to farmers.

The CIDF was given P100 million from the coconut levy funds which were deposited with the Philippine National Bank and placed under control of the National Investment and Development Corp. (NIDC).

The NIDC signed an agreement with Agricultural Investors Inc. (AII), which Cojuangco controlled with his associates, to produce hybrid coconut seed nuts on a parcel of land in Bugsuk.

In June 1978, control over the CIDF money was transferred from the NIDC to the United Coconut Planters Bank (UCPB), then also controlled by Cojuangco.

In its amended complaint, the PCGG noted that Cojuangco was both president and executive officer of the UCPB and controlled AII with his associates. — Rainier Allan Ronda