Gov’t to challenge ruling on Garcia

MANILA, Philippines - Malacañang is ready to contest the Sandiganbayan decision upholding former military comptroller Carlos Garcia’s plea bargaining agreement with the Office of the Ombudsman.

Secretary Ricky Carandang of the Presidential Communications Development and Strategic Planning Office said the Department of Justice and the Office of the Solicitor General are studying legal options.

“Let’s wait for the recommendations of DOJ and SolGen, and then we can decide what concrete steps can be taken,” he said.

Carandang said the development is disturbing to Malacañang.

“As you know... this issue led to the impeachment of former Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez... we don’t have a definite course of action right now,” he said.

Carandang said he did not know President Aquino’s reaction to the ruling.

“I haven’t spoken to him yet,” he said.

Aquino had questioned the plea bargaining agreement. The Office of the Ombudsman should have pursued all evidence to pin down Garcia, he added.

The plea bargaining agreement gave the impression that it was okay to steal and the corrupt should steal big so the government could settle for just half or part of the loot if no evidence could convict them, Aquino said.

‘Garcia could have walked away’

Sandiganbayan Associate Justices Teresita Diaz-Baldos, Roland Jurado, Alex Quiroz, and Samuel Martires said Garcia was on the verge of being acquitted and could have walked away without returning anything that he had allegedly stolen from government coffers.

“Contrary to the assertion of some quarters who were not privy to the private discussions and deliberations of the court then, nor were they aware of the workings of the minds of the justices, emphasis should be repeatedly made that even before the court ordered the accused to convey his properties to the government, it had already made the collective conclusion that the evidence presented by the prosecution was insufficient and inadequate to render a judgment of conviction for plunder,” they said.

“These private discussions and deliberations were not written by the court in its resolution as it is not required to do, but which will be written now…” they stressed, noting that they actually thought of revealing everything in their May 2010 order for Garcia to surrender his properties, bank accounts, and vehicles first, which was a condition for the court to approve the plea bargaining agreement.

Baldos, Jurado, Quiroz, and Martires said they decided to withhold the information that “an acquittal due to insufficient evidence was not far behind” because of two basic reasons:

“The court feared that if the accused… will be given the slightest idea that the evidence of the prosecution is insufficient to convict him, he may take advantage of the same and renege on his offer to plea bargain by withdrawing therefrom” and eventually be assured of an acquittal.

Second, the bulk of the properties that the government wants to recover are in the names of Garcia’s wife Clarita and sons Ian Carl, Juan Carlo, and Timothy Mark.

Baldos, Jurado, Quiroz, and Martires said the Office of the Ombudsman would be faced with the worse option of simply accepting those properties that are in the name of Garcia, or helplessly watch the accused walk free without the government recovering a piece of property from him.

“It is sad to note that these critics were only good at passing judgment on the court without exerting an honest effort to evaluate the records of the case…” they said.

Baldos, Jurado, Quiroz, and Martires said “a simple arithmetical computation” would show Garcia only had total assets in the amount of P269.3 million, including the $100,000 or P5.6 million that was seized from his sons at the San Francisco International Airport in December 2003.

“Through this work, therefore, this court rededicates itself in upholding the rule of law in the dispensation of justice, stripped of any personal motives, ambitions, interests or biases, or pressures from peers, associates or superiors.

“Let it be emphasized that our duty is to resolve cases not just for the benefit of the state, but for both the accuser and the accused. For, in the words of Eleonor Roosevelt, ‘justice cannot be for one side alone but must be for both.’”

Under the plea bargaining agreement, Garcia was ordered to surrender P135.4 million of his and his family’s assets here and abroad in May 2011.

He was arraigned on the lesser offenses of direct bribery and facilitating money laundering in December of the same year and allowed to post bail in the amount of P60,000.

Sources at the Office of the Ombudsman told The STAR only after Garcia is convicted of the crimes of direct bribery can the government move for the recovery of his assets in the United States through the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty, including the $100,000 seized from his sons and the P43.1-million condominium unit in Trump Park Avenue, New York. – Aurea Calica, Michael Punongbayan