Lawyer says Somido report to cause dismissal of GMA case

MANILA, Philippines - Former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s legal team expressed confidence yesterday that the so-called Somido report will lead to the dismissal of the plunder case filed against their client for alleged misuse of Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office confidential and intelligence funds (CIF).

Lawyer Anacleto Diaz, lead counsel for the now Pampanga representative in the case filed before the Sandiganbayan, said the contents of the original resolution of the Office of the Ombudsman which junked the plunder complaint create more than just reasonable doubt that would warrant the dismissal of charges.

“I think that is an understatement (that there is now reasonable doubt) because if this resolution really exonerated everybody, including particularly the COA (Commission on Audit) officials, then where is the plunder? Where are the essential elements of plunder? Wala (None),” Diaz told The STAR in an interview after the Somido report was finally made public.

“Because if you dismissed the case against the COA officials then they must have determined that the liquidation of the intelligence funds was proper. Where then is the accumulation and acquisition and amassing of ill-gotten wealth? Wala eh (nothing),” he explained.

The Somido report, named after Deputy Special Prosecutor Cornelio Somido who heads the five-member panel that unanimously junked the plunder complaint against Arroyo, was made public after one of the other respondents in the plunder case attached a copy of the report to a pleading filed before the Sandiganbayan First Division.

The report quoted the lawyers who conducted the preliminary investigation on the case as saying “the mere fact of receipt of the amount by a public officer by the nature of his public position does not automatically categorize the amount received as ill-gotten wealth.”

The Somido panel, composed also of directors Nellie Boguen-Golez and Joaquin Salazar, and lawyers Roque Dator and Mary Susan Guillermo, recommended the filing of graft charges only against Arroyo, former PCSO general manager Rosario Uriarte, former chairman Sergio Valencia, and former board members Manuel Morato, Raymundo Roquero, Jose Reyes Taruc V and Ma. Fatima Valdez.