Friday, February 10, 2006
Merchant asks court to overturn adverse ruling on shares in holding firm
BUSINESSMAN Alfonso Yuchengco has asked the Supreme Court (SC) to reconsider its January 20 decision declaring as "ill-gotten" a block of shares in a holding company that used to own the Philippine Long Distance Telephone (PLDT) Company.
In a motion for reconsideration, Yuchengco and Y Realty Corp, through lawyer Ramon Quisumbing, also asked the SC to remand the case to the Sandiganbayan for further proceedings.
The SC forfeited in favor of the government the 111,415 shares of the Philippine Telecommunications Investment Corp. (PTIC) registered in the name of the Cojuangco-led Prime Holdings Inc. (PHI) for being ill-gotten wealth.
The Yuchengco group is claiming ownership of about six percent of the disputed PITC saying they were forced to relinquish the shares to the Cojuangcos through the alleged coercion of former President Ferdinand Marcos.
"Again, it is well to remember that petitioners' causes of action did not arise out of a vacuum. They took place within the context of martial law and the Marcoses' systematic plunder of the country. It was important for petitioners to prove at the trial that President Marcos was the central figure in the scheme to forcibly take petitioners PTIC shares through coercion and duress because Marcos as the most credible source of the coercion and duress against petitioner Yuchengco," Quisumbing said.
He argued that the Sandiganbayan court erred when it ruled that they have waived their rights to present evidence after Yuchengco failed to show up in three hearings.
Quisumbing noted that the presentation of evidence was crucial to prove that Yuchengco made payments to two PTIC stockholders for his purchase of the six percent shares in PTIC and that the PHI was a Marcos dummy.
Voting seven to four with three abstentions, the SC, in its Jan. 20, 2006 decision, granted the petition of the government, through the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG), "to the extent that it prays for the reconveyance to the Republic of 111,415 PTIC shares registered in the name of PHI," a crony firm.
The shares were claimed by the government from the estate of the late businessman Ramon U. Cojuangco and his wife, Imelda O. Cojuangco, PHI, and former First Lady Imelda R. Marcos.
The high court said only President Marcos' ownership of PHI could explain how the holding company ended up owning the block of shares in PTIC.
In ruling that the PHI shares were ill-gotten, the SC noted several changes in the composition of the board of PHI and several transfers of shares of stocks owned by the stockholders.
The PTIC, controlled by the Cojuangco and Yuchengco groups, was the biggest shareholder in PDLT with 28 percent, before it sold its holdings to the First Pacific group represented by Manuel Pangilinan.
The PHI was ordered sequestered on May 9, 1986, but the Sandiganbayan voided its sequestration in 1993 on the ground that the PCGG order bore only one signature and the suit against the Cojuangcos was initiated after the six-month period prescribed by the 1987 Constitution.
The PHI was put up on Oct. 5, 1977 through incorporators Jose Campos Jr, Rolando Gapud, Renato Lirio, Ernesto Abalos and Gervacio Gaviola.
The SC said the simultaneous divestments of three of Cojuangco's close relatives of their shares in PTIC were with the knowledge and authorization of their "principal," Marcos.
"As such, the PCGG can and must recover for the Republic the 111,415 PTIC shares being held by PHI, they being the character of ill-gotten wealth whether they be in the hands of Marcos or those of Cojuangco," the SC said. (ECV/Sunnex)
(February 10, 2006 issue)
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