SC justice on leave breaks tie in P4-B land ruling

MANILA, Philippines - A Supreme Court justice facing impeachment and who is supposed to be on sick leave broke a tie vote on a 20-year-old, P4-billion land dispute case that the high tribunal resolved with finality.

The vote on the case involving the 34-hectare Piedad estate covering barangays Culiat, Capitol Hills, Old Balara, and Ayala Heights in Quezon City would have been 7-7 had not Justice Mariano del Castillo participated in the voting. The disputed property is now reportedly worth P4 billion.

Del Castillo, who is facing impeachment for alleged plagiarism, was supposed to have been on sick leave since days before he was to undergo his second open heart bypass surgery last Feb. 28. He was supposed to have reported back to work early this week.

He, along with Chief Justice Renato Corona and Associate Justices Teresita Leonardo-de Castro, Diosdado Peralta, Jose Perez, Lucas Bersamin, and Jose Mendoza, supported the decision written by Justice Martin Villarama reverting ownership of the land to the national government.

The justices who dissented were Antonio Carpio, Presbitero Velasco Jr., Arturo Brion, Roberto Abad, Bienvenido Reyes, Maria Lourdes Sereno, and Estela Perlas-Bernabe.

A copy of the decision sent to the team of congressmen prosecuting Corona in his Senate impeachment trial shows that it was the Chief Justice who signed for Del Castillo.

Above his colleague’s name and his own signature, Corona wrote: “I certify that Justice del Castillo sent his vote concurring with Justice Villarama.”

Sought for comment on this, prosecution spokesman Rep. Miro Quimbo of Marikina said: “That shows you how influential the Chief Justice is over his colleagues, the Supreme Court and the entire judiciary.”

“As we have been saying, he is so influential that he played a great part in the issuance of the Nov. 15 temporary restraining order that allowed former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and her husband to leave the country,” he said.

While Del Castillo’s impeachment case is still with the House of Representatives, Corona, whom 188 congressmen impeached last Dec. 12, is now being tried by the Senate impeachment court. His trial is currently on recess.

The House committee on justice has endorsed Del Castillo’s impeachment. The entire House would soon have to vote on whether to endorse it to the Senate for trial.

In the Piedad estate case decision promulgated last March 6, the Supreme Court threw out “with finality” the ownership claims of the Manotoks, Barques and Manahans over the property, which was part of the so-called friar lands.    

“None of the parties were able to establish by clear and convincing evidence a valid alienation from the government of the subject friar land,” it said.       

The tribunal upheld its Aug. 24, 2010 ruling affirming the findings of the Court of Appeals that the title of the Manotoks to the property was “null and void,” while the titles held by the Barques, as well as a deed of conveyance issued to Manahan, were “fake and spurious.”

In their dissent, Carpio and his six other colleagues recognized the Manotoks’ titles as valid largely on the basis of an affidavit executed by former secretary Mike Defensor of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.