The Supreme Court (SC) has upheld  with finality its  ruling earlier this year removing businessman Gregorio “Greggy” Ma. Araneta III as a respondent in the government’s recovery suits pending with the Sandiganbayan to recover P200 billion in alleged ill-gotten wealth during the term of the late strongman Ferdinand Marcos.
The SC’s Second Division through Associate Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno ordered the reinstatement of Araneta’s wife, Irene Marcos-Araneta, her siblings — Ilocos Norte Gov. Imelda Marcos-Manotoc and Sen. Ferdinand Marcos Jr. — as defendants in Civil Case No. 0002.
Associate Justices Arturo Brion, Martin Villarama Jr., Jose Portugal Perez and Bienvenido Reyes concurred with the ruling.
The tribunal denied for lack of merit the motion for reconsideration filed by the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) through the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) seeking a reversal of the Court’s Feb. 8 decision.
The said decision affirmed with modification the Dec. 6, 2005 resolution of the Sandiganbayan granting the demurrer to evidence filed by respondent-spouses Araneta for insufficiency of evidence.
In its February decision, the SC directed the reinstatement of the Marcos children as defendants to the ill-gotten wealth case pending with the Sandiganbayan because they were former President Marcos’ compulsory heirs.
However, the SC decision penned by Associate Justice Maria Lourdes P.A. Sereno, President Aquino’s first appointee to the SC, affirmed anti-graft court’s decision granting the demurrer to evidence filed by Mr. Araneta.
The SC’s Second Division also recommended to President Aquino, the OSG and the PCGG to investigate the prosecutors assigned to go after the ill-gotten wealth of the late dictator, his wife Imelda and their alleged cronies.
The high court lamented that government prosecutors disregarded procedural rules and failed to present available crucial evidence before the Sandiganbayan, which would have proven the guilt or innocence of the Marcos siblings as alleged co-conspirators in the accumulation of ill-gotten wealth during the term of their parents.
Although the prosecutors failed to prove that the Marcos siblings’ connived with their parents in accumulating ill-gotten wealth, the SC held that they should remain defendants in the complaint for reversion, reconveyance, restitution, accounting and damages filed against their father, as the latter’s compulsory heirs.
The tribunal pointed out that unless the executors of the Marcos estate — Mrs. Imelda Marcos and Marcos Jr., — or the heirs will waive in favor of the state their right to protect the estate or those properties found to be ill-gotten wealth in their possession or ownership, then they may not be dropped as defendants in the civil case pending before the Sandiganbayan.
The SC said the case against the Marcos estate executors must be maintained pursuant to Section 1 of Rule 87 of the Rules of Court.
Under the said provision, actions may be commended to recover from the estate, real or personal property, or an interest therein, or to enforce a lien thereon; and actions to recover damages for an injury to person or property, real or personal, may be commended against the executors.
According to the SC, Imee and Irene must also be maintained as defendants on the basis of the “non-exhaustive” list attached to the amended complaint filed by the PCGG, which states that the listed properties were owned by the Marcos couple and their immediate family.