PCGG to file another appeal on Cojuangco's SMC shares

MANILA, Philippines - The Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) is set to appeal the Supreme Court’s June 20 ruling affirming businessman Eduardo “Danding” Cojuangco Jr.’s ownership of 20 percent of San Miguel Corp.

“We will definitely file a second motion for reconsideration,” PCGG lawyer Gerard Mosquera said yesterday. The SC’s recent ruling was a dismissal of the first motion for reconsideration filed by the Office of the Solicitor General.

Mosquera said they would begin drafting a second MR as soon as they get a copy of the SC resolution penned by Associate Justice Lucas Bersamin.

Shortly after the SC made public its ruling on Cojuangco’s shares, SC spokesman Midas Marquez said the high tribunal would no longer entertain further pleading on the case.

But Mosquera said the PCGG and the OSG saw no obstacle to filing a second MR.

Mosquera said the PCGG would have more inputs in the drafting of the second MR.

“We’ll work with the OSG on crafting the second MR but we’ll make sure to have more control this time,” Mosquera told The STAR.

The PCGG earlier said the OSG’s first MR was “weak” and that it tried to correct the situation by submitting a supplemental motion. The OSG, however, declined to file the supplemental motion.

In a ruling last April 12, the SC upheld the Nov. 28, 2007 ruling of the Sandiganbayan lifting nine writs of sequestration issued by PCGG on Cojuangco’s shares. The SC said there was no abuse of discretion in the Sandiganbayan’s ruling.

The PCGG wanted Cojuangco’s 20 percent San Miguel shares returned to the government saying they had been purchased in 1983 using funds from the United Coconut Planters’ Bank and the Coconut Industry Investment Fund’s (CIIF) oil mills - both repositories of coco levy funds.

Cojuangco, a known crony of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos, had served as president and member of the board of UCPB, which he had helped set up using coco levy funds. The business tycoon was also in the board of directors of PCA when he acquired the San Miguel shares. The government currently holds 91 percent of UCPB. The PCGG was set up immediately after the 1986 EDSA revolution to go after the illegally acquired wealth of the Marcoses and their cronies.

Meanwhile, militant peasant group Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas assailed Malacañang yesterday for its silence on the SC’s decision on Cojuangco’s San Miguel shares.

“Aquino’s continuing silence on the coco levy fund and his uncle Danding’s so-called legal victory is predictable. Danding is now reaping the fruits of his support to Aquino’s presidential bid,” said KMP deputy secretary-general Willy Marbella.

The KMP was reacting to presidential spokesperson Edwin Lacierda’s statement that it would be up to the OSG to make the next move. “They (OSG) will have to confer with the Presidential Commission on Good Government,” Lacierda said.

Marbella, a coconut farmer from Bicol, still holds his father’s stock certificate for four coconut oil mills: Legaspi Oil Company Inc., San Pablo Manufacturing Corp., Granexport Manufacturing Corp., and Southern Luzon Coconut Oil Mills Inc.

Marbella called the SC decision “a grave injustice to small coconut farmers.”

“Since sequestration moves started in 1986, genuine small coconut farmers have not benefited a single cent from the coco levy fund. Even from our so-called 27-percent shares in SMC that is now reduced to about 24 percent,” Marbella said referring to Japanese brewer Kirin’s entry into San Miguel that “diluted” government shares.

For his part, KMP secretary-general Danilo Ramos said “Danding’s so-called legal victory on the coco levy funds is a strong signal on how the Supreme Court will decide on the Hacienda Luisita agrarian dispute.”

“In light of reports that SMC now have a stake on Hacienda Luisita, Danding would be a major factor in the Luisita agrarian dispute resolution,” he said.

“Luisita farmworkers have all the reason to fear that the agrarian dispute will suffer the same fate as the coco levy funds,” he said.– With Rhodina Villanueva