High Court Strikes Down Sequestration of Marcoses' Olot Resthouse

In the coastal barangay of Olot in the municipio of Tolosa in Leyte, a highly contested property is found: a 17-room resthouse sitting on 42 hectares of beachfront land, with a golf course, swimming pool, cottages, a pelota court, and a pavilion.  How it became controversial is simple: it is among the properties of the late-strongman Ferdinand Marcos' family sequestered by the Presidential Commission on Good Government as ill-gotten wealth.

Early this month, December 7, 2010, the Supreme Court ordered the return of the Olot Resthouse to the Marcoses.

According to the High Court, an order of sequestration may only issue upon a showing “of a prima facie case” that the properties are ill-gotten wealth, in accordance with Section 26 of Article XVIII of the Constitution.  

Following the case of Bataan Shipyard & Engineering Co, Inc. v. PCGG, 234 Phil. 180, 214 (1987), the SC says that the power to determine the existence of a prima facie case is vested in the PCGG as an incident to its investigatory powers.

As a rule, two commissioners are needed to determine and approve a prima facie case to assure a collegial determination of such fact.

In this case, however, the SC explains, the PCGG did not make a prior determination of the existence of a prima facie case that would warrant the sequestration of the Olot Resthouse, as the sequestration order was issued by mere lawyers/agents of the Commission.  There was also no showing that the lawyers were given the quasi-judicial authority to receive and consider evidence that would warrant such a prima facie finding, the SC notes.

Moreover, there were no evidence describing how the Marcoses acquired the sequestered property, what makes it “ill-gotten wealth,” and how the former president intervened in its acquisition, the SC remarks.

As in PCGG v. Judge Peña, 243 Phil. 93 (1988), the SC reiterates that the powers, functions and duties of the PCGG amount to the exercise of quasi-judicial functions, and the exercise of such functions cannot be delegated by the Commission to its representatives or subordinates or task forces because of the well-established principle that judicial or quasi-judicial powers may not be delegated.

Furthermore, although the Commission issued a letter directing their lawyer-agents to search and sequester all properties, documents, money and other assets of the Marcoses, the SC did not consider it as a writ of sequestration, as what the PCGG asserts, and the resultant sequestration order made by the lawyers/agents cannot be treated as implementing order.

Despite of this setback, the High Court rules that the lifting of the sequestration order is not at all fatal to the government's main case against the Marcoses, because such lifting does not conclude that the sequestered properties are not ill-gotten wealth.  The lifting, according to SC, simply means that the government may not act as conservator or may not exercise administrative or housekeeping powers over the property, and the Republic of the Philippines can be protected by a notice of lis pendens.

A full-text copy of the decision is available for free at:

http://sc.judiciary.gov.ph/jurisprudence/2010/december2010/155832.htm

Source: Republic of the Philippines v. Sandiganbayan (4th Division) and Imelda Marcos, G.R. No. 155832

//rmis//