(April 5, 2002) The Presidential Commission on Good Government is aghast to discover that 92 of the 111 criminal cases that it filed against the Marcoses and their cronies with the Office of the Ombudsman have been dismissed.

The Presidential Commission on Good Government is aghast to discover that 92 of the 111 criminal cases that it filed against the Marcoses and their cronies with the Office of the Ombudsman have been dismissed.

PCGG commissioner Ruben Carranza said the figures were based on two lists of criminal complaints provided by the Office of the Ombudsman.

The PCGG, the agency tasked with recovering the ill-gotten wealth of the Marcoses and their cronies, came up with the numbers while conducting an inventory of dismissed and pending cases.

Carranza admitted that the 92 dismissed cases, as of last year, was a “very rough” estimate as “our own record-keeping here is not systematic.” He said the record-keeping system of the Ombudsman was also unsystematic.

Carranza said the number represented the reconciled figure from a list provided by the Head Executive Assistant of the Ombudsman, and from another list from the Overall Deputy Ombudsman.

Ombudsman Aniano Desierto said he could not recall dismissing more than 90 cases involving the ill-gotten wealth of the Marcoses.

Desierto said the PCGG should not blame him for the cases dismissed by his predecessor, Conrado Vasquez.

“I will not be answerable for the decisions of my predecessor. I will only be responsible for the decisions made by my people during my watch,” said Desierto, who had earlier slammed Carranza for making the Office of the Ombudsman the scapegoat for the PCGG’s “gross incompetence.”

“As far as I remember, the PCGG filed 27 behest loan cases since I assumed my post,” Desierto said. Of the 27 cases, 18 prospered in the Sandiganbayan.

“We investigated and filed the 18 cases. We even secured a conviction in two cases involving former First Lady Imelda Marcos,” he said.

Desierto explained that the 27 complaints were all criminal cases. “We don’t handle civil cases,” said the Ombudsman, who reminded Carranza to distinguish between civil and criminal cases.

Desierto, however, recalled that Vasquez had dismissed most of the cases filed by the PCGG for lack of evidence.

“We are not the complainants. It’s the PCGG. Thus they should be the ones looking for evidence, not the Ombudsman. They should stop confusing the public,” he said.

Desierto promised to come up with a list of all the cases investigated and prosecuted by his office.

Deputization sought

Carranza said that the PCGG was not really faulting the Ombudsman for the dismissal of the cases. “In fact, the PCGG wants to assist the Ombudsman,” he said.

The PCGG has submitted a list of 29 PCGG lawyers that it wants the Ombudsman to deputize in the handling of the criminal cases at the Sandiganbayan.

Ironically, the Ombudsman does not usually inform the PCGG when cases are dismissed, according to Carranza.

It’s the Sandiganbayan that sends the PCGG copies of the resolutions and orders of dismissals.

The problem arises when the court acquits the accused. In an acquittal, the chances of reversing the decision are small, according to the PCGG.

An example is the acquittal of former First Lady Imelda Marcos, who, along with three other officials of the defunct Ministry of Human Settlement, was cleared of malversation charges.

The cases, filed by the Aquino administration in 1987, were in connection with conspiracy to defraud the government of 97.95 million pesos that was part of the 100 million pesos in a special fund allotted to the MHS’ “Kilusan para sa Sariling Sikap” project.

Carranza said the Ombudsman did not even oppose the “demurrer of evidence” filed by the accused, prompting the court to decide on the case with Mrs. Marcos’ lawyer claiming that the case had weak evidence.

The Ombudsman’s special prosecutors should have opposed this demurrer and insist that the government had a strong case, Carranza said.

“We are avoiding a situation where we lose cases without actually putting up a fight,” he said.

“I hope the Ombudsman seeks reconsideration because there is evidence against the accused in these cases,” Carranza said.

He said there were documents, including those from the Commission on Audit, on the anomalous transactions that were part of the evidence against Mrs. Marcos and former Human Settlements deputy minister Jose Conrado Benitez and the two other accused.

“The evidence is both documentary and testimonial,” he said.

He said it was not the PCGG’s job to seek reconsideration of this case because the prosecutors were from the Office of the Ombudsman.

Carranza noted that lawyers from the Office of the Ombudsman usually filed motions for withdrawal of cases without informing the PCGG.

Donna S. Cueto and Michael Lim Ubac,  Inquirer News Service, April 5, 2002