YEARENDER: High-profile political cases put SC to task

MANILA, Philippines – The year 2015 saw the Supreme Court (SC) deciding on major controversial cases and maintaining its independence from political institutions, just as it did in the past two years when it struck down the pork barrel funds of Congress and the Disbursement Acceleration Program of the executive branch.

Last November, the justices decided to abandon the condonation doctrine, which effectively extinguishes a reelected official’s administrative liability from alleged wrongdoing during a previous term.

The magistrates abandoned the doctrine in ruling on the case of the Office of the Ombudsman’s preventive suspension against now dismissed Makati Mayor Jejomar Erwin Binay Jr. over alleged anomaly in the Makati City Hall Building 2 project.

Also called the Aguinaldo doctrine, the condonation principle set by the SC itself in an October 1959 decision was invoked by reelected officials in shielding themselves from administrative liabilities on acts from their previous terms.

But in abandoning the doctrine, the high tribunal decided to impose a prospective application of its ruling, which means the abandonment would apply only in succeeding cases.

The ombudsman and Mayor Binay both declared victory in the case. But the real winner, court observers said, was the Sixth Division of the Court of Appeals (CA) as the high court ruled it was correct in stopping the preventive suspension of the ombudsman against Mayor Binay, who was already dismissed by the anti-graft office over the same administrative charge.

The case became even more controversial after Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV, a known political foe of Vice President Jejomar Binay, accused the CA justices of receiving bribes in stopping the mayor’s suspension.

Last April, Trillanes alleged that Associate Justices Jose Reyes Jr. and Francisco Acosta of the CA sixth division received P25 million each from Mayor Binay’s camp in issuing the temporary retraining order and writ of preliminary injunction on the ombudsman’s suspension order.

The CA has tapped its committee on ethics and special concerns to look into the claim, but no evidence has since been presented to support the claim. Trillanes is now subject of a contempt charge before the appellate court and a libel charge before the Department of Justice (DOJ).

The SC also ruled on other high-profile political cases. Last August, it granted the bid of embattled Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile to be temporarily released from detention while facing plunder and other cases at the Sandiganbayan in connection with his alleged involvement in the pork barrel scam.

A majority of the justices voted to grant the petition of Enrile challenging the ruling of the Sandiganbayan in July last year that denied his motion to post bail, citing humanitarian reasons.

But the ruling did not come without controversy after dissenting Associate Justice Marvic Leonen questioned the last-minute revision in the draft decision written by Associate Justice Lucas Bersamin before it was approved by eight justices during voting.

Leonen recalled that previous deliberations centered on two mitigating circumstances in Enrile’s plunder case – his advanced age at the time of commission of the alleged crime and his voluntary surrender – that would determine whether the penalty could be lowered.

But in their session last Aug. 18, Bersamin changed his draft and instead focused on the humanitarian consideration as ground in granting Enrile’s bail petition, Leonen claimed.

He said Bersamin “passed around a final copy of the majority opinion which was not the version voted upon during the morning’s deliberation.”

Bersamin filed a rejoinder last Tuesday denying Leonen’s charges and accused the latter of overstepping his bounds and lacking respect for the majority ruling.

Chief Justice Ma. Lourdes Sereno later described the incident as a “disagreement in opinion” that is supposedly “normal” in a collegial body like the high court.

In another political case, the SC has granted relief to former President and now Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in her plunder case before the Sandiganbayan.

Last October, it issued a 30-day status quo ante order halting the proceedings before the First Division of the anti-graft court involving the alleged P366-million Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) fund anomaly.

Arroyo filed her petition with the high court last April seeking reversal of the final ruling of the Sandiganbayan First Division last February denying her bail motion.

The SC has since not granted relief to Arroyo until she reiterated her plea last October and cited a report from the United Nations Technical Working Group on Arbitrary Detention recommending her release from detention.

The UN panel has recommended the reconsideration of Arroyo’s application for bail “in accordance with the relevant international human rights standards.”

Arroyo argued that the UN panel’s position was consistent with the petition for bail and demurrer to evidence her defense lawyers filed before the Sandiganbayan First Division.

The UN panel is composed of five independent human rights experts. Arroyo is represented in the UN by international human rights lawyer Amal Clooney, wife of actor George Clooney.

After the 30-day period lapsed, the SC extended the status quo ante order for another 60 days or until Feb.16, 2016.

Last Dec. 8, the SC also granted the detained former leader a holiday furlough allowing her to spend Christmas and New Year with her family in their house in La Vista Subdivision in Quezon City.

In issuing the order, the high court was acting on Arroyo’s urgent motion for house arrest in her bail petition in the same plunder case.

Court observers cited Arroyo’s case as another proof of the judiciary’s independence from the executive branch, which has persistently opposed her pleas in court.

Big business cases

In March, the SC struck down a Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) order imposing withholding tax on the P35-billion Poverty Eradication and Alleviation Certificates (PEACe) bonds issued by the government in 2001.

In a 45-page decision, the SC declared as null and void BIR’s Ruling Nos. 370 and 378 in 2011 that imposed a 20-percent final withholding tax on the bonds bought by eight banks.

The SC also directed the Bureau of the Treasury (BTr) to turn over to the banks the tax amounting to about P5 billion that the government withheld upon maturity of the bonds on Oct. 28, 2011 despite a temporary restraining order issued by the high court on that same day.

It held that the BIR erred in ruling that “all treasury bonds, regardless of the number of purchasers/lenders at the time of issuance are considered deposit substitutes.” 

In June, the SC stopped construction of the 46-story Torre de Manila condominium that allegedly ruins the sight line of the monument of national hero Jose Rizal in Rizal Park. The tribunal issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) enjoining property developer DMCI Homes Inc. from proceeding with the project.

The court granted the immediate relief sought in the petition filed by Knights of Rizal in September 2014 seeking the demolition of the condominium building.

The high tribunal has yet to rule on the merits of the case, which it heard in oral arguments last July.

Also in June, the SC stopped the implementation of two executive orders of President Aquino authorizing the privatization and utilization of coconut levy funds amounting to some P73.4 billion by the government.

It issued a TRO on Executive Order Nos. 179 and 180 pertaining to the inventory and reconveyance of coco levy funds, respectively, and granted the plea in the petition filed last May by the Confederation of Coconut Farmers Organizations of the Philippines (CCFOP), the biggest organization of coconut farmers in the country.

Three months later, the high court acted on a related case and junked the claims of United Coconut Planters Bank (UCPB) and United Coconut Planters Life Assurance Corp. (Cocolife) on the P60-billion coconut levy shares in San Miguel Corp. (SMC) earlier seized in favor of the government.

It dismissed the petition of UCPB and Cocolife before the Makati City regional trial court claiming a portion of the 24-percent block of shares in SMC registered under Coconut Industry Investment Fund (CIIF), which the SC had declared as part of the ill-gotten wealth of the Marcoses.

Also in September, the SC ordered the government to compensate the Philippine International Air Terminals Co. Inc. (Piatco) at least $510 million for the expropriation of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 3.

The SC has set the amount of just compensation at $267,493,617.26 as of December 2004 plus annual interest of 12 percent from September 2006 and another annual interest of six percent from July 2013 until full payment.

It applied the replacement cost method under RA 8974, the law that governs right-of-way acquisition for national government projects, and based the amount on depreciated value of the terminal.

In December, the SC permanently stopped the government from field-testing bacillus thuringiensis (bt) eggplants, a genetically modified eggplant variety that produces its own pesticide.

The SC dismissed the consolidated petitions of multinational firms and farmers pushing for the field trials, propagation and commercialization, and importation of bt eggplants.

The SC instead affirmed the ruling of the Court of Appeals in May 2013, which stopped the field-testing of bt eggplants upon petition filed by environmental advocacy group Greenpeace.