The Supreme Court has sustained a ruling issued by the Sandiganbayan in 2020 that lifted the sequestration order against a property in Baguio City belonging to Ramon Cojuangco, founder of Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company (PLDT) and his wife Imelda.
In a 10-page decision penned by Associate Justice Maria Filomena Singh, the High Court’s Third Division denied the petition filed by the Presidential Commission on Good Government seeking the reversal of Sandiganbayan’s March 13, 2020 decision.
The Sandiganbayan granted the petition filed by C&O Investment and Realty Corp and its chairman and president, Miguel Cojuangco, one of the compulsory heirs of the Cojuangco spouses.
The anti-graft court said the property should not be considered as ill-gotten wealth because the transfer certificate title shows it was acquired by the Cojuangcos on Dec. 12, 1955, before the term of the late President Ferdinand Marcos Sr.
The Sandiganbayan also ruled that respondents presented a deed of absolute sale dated Dec. 23, 1976 between spouses Cojuangco and C&O which showed that even before the sequestration letter was issued, the property had long been sold by the Cojuangcos and should not have been considered part of their assets.
In assailing the Sandiganbayan decision, the PCGG insisted the property is validly being held to answer for dividends and interests accruing from the Philippine Telecommunications Investment Corporation.
The PCGG noted that the original complaint against the Marcoses was superseded by a third amended complaint which impleaded the estate of Ramon Cojuangco, Imelda Cojuangco, and the Philippine Holdings, Inc. (PHI) and sought to recover from said defendants and their nominees’ agents and to reconvey to the government the 111, 415 PTIC shares in the name of PHI.
The SC, however, ruled the property was acquired by the spouses Cojuangco in 1955 or a decade before Marcos Sr. became President.
“As correctly held by the Sandiganbayan, the subject property could not have been acquired by the spouses Cojuangco through any illegal or improper use of funds belonging to the government, and thus is not a proper object of sequestration,” the High Court said.