Saturday, January 12, 2008 SC told to overturn ruling on coco levy case
FORMER senators Jovito Salonga and Wigberto Tañada, representing coconut farmers, on Friday asked the Supreme Court (SC) to reverse a Sandiganbayan decision declaring that the 20-percent shares in San Miguel Corporation (SMC) being claimed by businessman Eduardo "Danding" Cojuangco are not part of the coco levy funds.
Assailed was the November 28, 2007 ruling of the Sandiganbayan First Division which ruled that Cojuangco is the rightful owner of the contested shares in the giant food conglomerate. The ruling ended almost 20 years of litigation where the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) represented the government.
In a petition in intervention, several farmers said the anti-graft court gravely erred and decided the case in violation of law and contrary to the previous ruling of the high court that subject SMC shares are not public property.
Aside from Salonga and Tanada, other intervenors were coconut farmers and various groups, namely, former congressman Oscar Santos; Romeo Royandoyan of the Surigao del Sur Federation of Agricultural Cooperatives; Moro Farmers Association of Zamboanga del Sur; Coconut Farmers of Southern Leyte Cooperative; Philippine Rural Reconstruction Movement led by Conrado Navarro; Coconut Industry Reform Movement led by Jose Marie Faustino; Vicente Fabe of the Pambansang Kilusan ng mga Magsasaka; Nonito Clemente of Niugan; Nilo Suante of Kammpil; and former Philippine Coconut Authority (PCA) chairman Virgilio David.
Petitioners claimed that the subject SMC shares, having been purchased from funds sourced from the United Coconut Planters' Bank (UCPB) and the Coconut Industry Investment Fund's (CIIF) oil mills, are deemed to have been purchased using public funds.
They further said respondent Cojuangco has admitted that the borrowings were made by the 14 holding companies.
Since the 14 holding companies have been found to belong to the government, then such borrowings from which the subject shares were bought are liabilities of the government, for which reason these shares should properly pertain to government, petitioners said.
Citing Section 4, Rule 129 of the Rules of Court, Tañada said such judicial admission on the part of Cojuangco that the subject block of shares were purchased through loans from UCPB "does not require proof."
"It is highly questionable that the Snadiganbayan decided differently from its previous rulings on the coconut levy cases even as the sources of the funds for the shares claimed by Cojuangco came from the same source - the coconut levies," said Tañada.
Tanada further said even assuming that the loan proceeds from UCPB are not public funds, still, since Cojuangco, in the purchase of the SMC shares from loan proceeds, violated his duties to UCPB and the CIIF companies as he was then president/director of the UCPB and of the CIIF companies.
He said Cojuangco "took a commercial opportunity that rightfully belonged to the UCPB, a public corporation," thus subject shares of the food firm should revert to the government.
At the time of the Sandiganbayan ruling, the Cojuangco bloc was worth P18.8 billion at the closing of San Miguel shares at P47.
Cojuangco was director of the PCA and chairman of the UCPB at the time the SMC shares were acquired.
While Cojuangco was adjudged owner of the disputed shares, his counterclaims against the government for damages on alleged violation of his rights over his properties when the PCGG sequestered the shares in 1987 was also dismissed, with the court holding that there was also no evidence against the government.
In its November 28 decision, the anti-graft court dismissed the complaint of farmers for failure of the PCGG to prove by preponderance of evidence its causes of action against defendants with respect to the 20-percent outstanding shares of stock of the SMC registered in the name of Cojuangco.
The ruling also junked a separate claim by the Philippine Coconut Producers Federation (Cocofed), saying its motion asking that the case be set for trial and it be allowed to present its own evidence has been "overtaken by developments" as the issue of ownership is already resolved on account of the government's "failure to adduce evidence to support and establish material allegations in its complaint."
The court held that lawyers from the PCGG and the Office of the Solicitor General presented insufficient evidence to prove the crucial allegation in its complaint -- that Cojuangco used coconut levy funds, which have been declared public funds, to acquire his stake in SMC. (ECV/Sunnex)
