Ex-justice chief loses bid to junk $2 million forfeiture case

MANILA, Philippines — The Sandiganbayan has denied a new bid of former justice secretary Hernando Perez to challenge the validity of a civil forfeiture case filed against him by the Office of the Ombudsman in 2014 in connection with the alleged extortion of $2 million from the late former Manila congressman Mark Jimenez.

In a resolution promulgated on Dec. 20, 2021, the court’s Third Division denied the joint request of Perez, his wife Rosario and brother-in-law Ramon Arceo Jr. to compel the ombudsman’s prosecution team to answer their questions on the legality of the forfeiture case.

The Third Division said all the questions that the Perezes and Arceo raised have long been resolved, especially when it denied their motions and that of their co-defendant, businessman Ernesto Escaler, to dismiss the case.

The case stemmed from a complaint filed by Jimenez before the ombudsman in 2003.

Perez and his business associate Escaler allegedly extorted $2 million from Jimenez in 2001 in exchange for no longer forcing him to testify in the plunder case against former president Joseph Estrada. Perez at the time was the justice secretary under president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

Jimenez was an ally of Estrada and also served as the latter’s presidential adviser for Latin American affairs.

Jimenez later reportedly executed a letter of retraction, but the ombudsman ruled to proceed with filing the case before the Sandiganbayan, saying that bank records and a money trail show that Perez failed to declare huge sums of money in his Statements of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth for 2001 and 2002.

The Third Division, in 2017, ruled to proceed with the trial of the civil forfeiture case although the graft and robbery charges in connection with the alleged extortion were dismissed in 2009.