SC rejects PCGG plea on Benedicto golf club stocks

The Supreme Court junked yesterday with finality the motion for reconsideration of the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) seeking to reverse a Sandiganbayan ruling ordering it to pay the heirs of businessman Roberto Benedicto P34 million worth of shares of stocks in the Negros Occidental Golf and Country Club.

In ruling in favor of Benedicto’s heirs, the Supreme Court said the PCGG failed to raise new arguments that would justify a reversal of the anti-graft court’s decision last March 6 ordering the PCGG to pay Benedicto’s heirs the value of his 227 shares of stocks in the Negros Occidental Golf and Country Club, placed at P150,000 per share or a total of P34 million.

The Supreme Court’s second division, through Associate Justice Cancio Garcia, upheld last March 6 the March 28, 1995 and March 13, 1997 rulings of the Sandiganbayan, granting Benedicto’s Feb. 22, 1994 motion seeking the release from sequestration of his 227 shares of stocks in the Negros Occidental Golf and Country Club and that he be subsequently paid as part of the compromise agreement he had entered into with the PCGG.

The agreement contained a general release clause where the PCGG agreed to lift the sequestration of Benedicto’s 227 shares of stocks in the Negros Occidental Golf and Country Club.

The PCGG acknowledged that it was within Benedicto’s capacity to acquire the shares of stocks out of the income from his businesses.

The PCGG sequestered Benedicto’s 227 shares of stocks in the Negros Occidental Golf and Country Club pursuant to Executive Order No. 14, Series of 1986, then issued by President Corazon Aquino.