In a four-page resolution last April 11, the anti-graft court’s second division held that Rexor Ver is entitled to a full-blown trial to disprove the government’s accusations that he acted as a dummy for his late father.
The government said Ver has helped to conceal the alleged ill-gotten wealth of his late father amassed during the term of the late strongman Ferdinand Marcos.
The Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) had filed a motion claiming Ver’s plain denial that his properties "are not ill-gotten" is insufficient to overcome allegations that he acted as "a dummy, agent or nominee" of his late father.
"We find merit in defendant Rexor Ver’s assertion that the matter of presenting evidence to rebut the allegation is best expressed not in an answer but during the course of trial where he can properly expound on his defenses via documentary and testimonial evidence," the Sandiganbayan said.
The anti-graft court said Ver’s answer raises a question of fact that can only be clarified during a trial on the merits of the case.
A summary judgment at this point in the case, the court said, would be "hasty" and would "preempt the defendant’s constitutional right to answer the charges against him."
"Courts should not render a summary judgment hastily but rather, carefully assuming a scrutiny of facts in a summary hearing, considering that this remedy is in disparagement of a party’s right to due process," the court declared.
Ver was a former Army lieutenant colonel during the Marcos administration.
The Vers fled the country along with the Marcoses after the dictator was deposed in the first EDSA people power revolution in 1986.
Two years later, the PCGG seized the Ver family’s properties including real estate holdings and various investments.
Among the properties seized from the Vers were a house and lot on Lapu-Lapu street in Magallanes Village, Makati City and three other parcels of land in the exclusive Corinthian Gardens in Quezon City.