PCGG to get lawyers' advice on Arelma deposits

MANILA, Philippines - The Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) will consult with US lawyers on their effort to claim the $35-million Arelma deposits, following a recent decision by a New York State Supreme Court justice that some 10,000 human rights victims during martial law can make a claim on the money.

Lawyer Ricardo Abcede, PCGG commissioner for litigation, in a long-distance phone interview, said they would get the advice of their lawyers from the New York law firm of Paul Hastings on how they would proceed with the case.

“Anyway, we still have time to decide,” Abcede, who is in Singapore with PCGG chairman Camilo Sabio and Commissioner Jaime Bautista, told The STAR.

He said there were serious legal implications if they submit themselves to the court, especially in view of the Philippine government’s sovereign immunity.

New York State Supreme Court Justice Charles Ramos has set a pre-trial conference on Dec. 15.

Abcede expressed frustration over Ramos’ ruling and that of a Singapore high court in 2006 that stopped the Philippine government from getting the remainder of the $600 million in Marcos Swiss deposits transferred by Swiss banks in the US in 2004.

“(Sovereign immunity) should apply universally. Why should it be any different from one country to another,” he lamented.

“The doctrine of sovereign immunity invoked by the Philippines and upheld by the Swiss Federal Court and the United States Supreme Court basically recognizes the right of one country’s courts to decide on a litigation concerning its own affairs,” he said.

In his ruling dated Nov. 9, Justice Ramos said a US high court ruling issued two years ago, which upheld the Philippine government’s sovereign immunity and right to claim all confiscated ill-gotten wealth of the Marcoses, was merely “informative” and does not bind the New York State Supreme Court.

He explained that Marcos human rights victims could forge ahead with their claim pending before his court and seek the turnover to them of the funds being held by Merrill Lynch, even though they have failed to join the action by the Philippine government, which has a competing claim on the deposits.

The Philippine government is also invoking its sovereign immunity to convince the Singapore Court of Appeals that some $27 million deposited in the Singapore branch of German bank West LB should be turned over to it and not be forfeited in favor of the Marcos human rights victims. – Rainier Allan Ronda, Christina Mendez