MANILA, Philippines - The Supreme Court (SC) upheld yesterday tycoon and presidential uncle Eduardo “Danding” Cojuangco Jr.’s ownership of 20 percent shares in San Miguel Corp. (SMC).
SC spokesman Midas Marquez said that in full-court session, a majority of the 13 justices voted to dismiss the appeal filed by the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) against the high court’s April 12 ruling declaring Cojuangco as the rightful owner of the shares. Cojuangco is chairman and chief executive officer of SMC.
The PCGG argued that the shares were acquired using coconut levy funds and formed part of the ill-gotten wealth of the Marcoses and their cronies.
Marquez said the SC, which is expected to release its resolution today, would no longer entertain further pleadings on the case.
He said the justices dismissed the PCGG’s claim that Cojuangco’s shares should be returned to the government, as they had been purchased in 1983 using funds from the United Coconut Planters’ Bank and the Coconut Industry Investment Fund (CIIF)’s oil mills – both repositories of coconut levy funds.
In a 73-page decision penned by Associate Justice Lucas Bersamin and handed down last April 12, the SC dismissed the petition of the PCGG seeking reversal of the Nov. 28, 2007 ruling of the Sandiganbayan favoring Cojuangco.
In the ruling, the SC affirmed the Sandiganbayan’s lifting of nine writs of sequestration issued by the PCGG on Cojuangco’s shares. The SC said there was no abuse of discretion in Sandiganbayan’s ruling.
In its April 12 ruling, the SC also said the government “should furnish to the Sandiganbayan in proper judicial proceedings the competent evidence proving who were close associates of President Marcos who has amassed assets and properties that would be rightly considered as ill-gotten wealth.”
By Edu Punay, The Philippine Star
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