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Four judges told to explain Legacy TRO

DIE HARD III

Herman Tiu Laurel

02/12/2009

The Philippine judiciary, whose reputation was severely tarnished last year due to a bribery scandal which resulted in the canning of one Court of Appeals (CA) justice, the suspension from office of another and the admonition of three others, had better prepare for another drubbing.

Several congressmen belonging to the House committee on banks are demanding that three CA justices and a Manila judge appear before them next week to explain why they had granted a temporary restraining order (TRO) in mid-2008 to Celso de los Angeles of the beleaguered Legacy Group which prevented Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) auditors from sifting though the books of accounts of the 13 troubled rural banks he reportedly controlled, which then gave them the opportunity to fleece unsuspecting depositors of an additional P1.2 billion.

Those trapped in the eye of a maelstrom were identified by Rep. Rufus Rodriguez of Cagayan, during the start of a series of public hearings being conducted by the lower House intended to get to the bottom of the Legacy controversy, as Judge Nina Antonio-Valenzuela of Branch 28 of the Manila Regional Trial Court, as well CA justices Antonio Bruselas Jr., Bienvenido Reyes and Mariflor Punzalan-Castillo.

As a result of the TRO, Congressman Rodriguez charged, De los Angeles and his cohorts were able to stay the BSP ax which afforded them the opportunity to milk over P1.2 billion in fund placements from some 2,300 unsuspecting depositors and investors from the time it was issued in June 2008 up to the time Legacy closed its branches six months later in December 2008.

Rodriguez said it was Judge Valenzuela who initially signed the TRO, while Justices Bruselas, Reyes and Castillo were the members of the CA Eighth Division which upheld her decision after the BSP filed a petition to question its regularity.

One unfortunate soul, a constituent whom Rodriguez identified as Sammy Ocampo, died last weekend due to cardiac arrest after undergoing tremendous stress since last December when Legacy suddenly shut down operations and he was informed he wouldn’t be getting back his deposit amounting to P500,000 anytime soon. Ocampo had recently quit his government job and had received retirement benefits amounting to around P2 million, 25 percent of which he plunked down in the Legacy bank due to the “double-your-money” plan they were offering to depositors.

Ironically, the Supreme Court threw out the TRO issued by Judge Valenzuela and upheld by the three CA justices in November after the BSP elevated the case to them, but by then it was already way too late for the poor Legacy investors who had allowed themselves to be enticed into the elaborate money trap and parting with their hard-earned money.

Rodriguez, a former lawyer of President Estrada, said he plans to file a case against Valenzuela, Bruselas, Reyes and Castillo for interfering in the Legacy controversy which was in violation of Section 25 of the New Central Bank Act of 1993 giving the BSP emergency powers to intervene in the affairs of banks with insolvency problems.

Well it is high time that these judges are taught a lesson or two about poking their noses in places where they don’t belong, and we do hope they don’t just end up with a rap on the knuckles for all the pain and anguish their TRO had caused literally thousands of Legacy victims.

According to one of the legal advisers of former Agriculture Undersecretary Joc-joc Bolante, the alleged mastermind of the P728-million fertilizer fund scam, the evidence against his client appears to be weak and not sufficient to pin him down to the allegations being ranged against him, which is why they are confident he won’t get to spend a single jail in the slammer.

For whatever it is worth, their feeling is that the Senate hearings tend to show that Bolante had been consistent in his answers and nowhere could it be established that he committed any wrongdoing with respect to the controversial P728-million fund he is charged with disbursing illegally at the behest of his bosses in Malacañang; therefore he is innocent of all allegations and was unjustly labeled and maligned in the controversy.

Here are samples of the allegations raised against Bolante during the Senate hearings, that were debunked by Bolante himself based on documentary and testimonial evidence submitted.

For starters, Bolante said the distribution of the fertilizer fund was actually a regular undertaking of the Department of Agriculture (DA). This was however denied by Regional Directors Roger Chio and Leo Caneda who said this was never done in previous years. Bolante countered that it is part of the DA’s farm inputs and farm implements program that are regular components of four banner projects. Farm inputs include seeds, seedlings, planting materials, micro nutrients, pesticides, fingerlings, vaccines and fertilizers, while farm implements include weeders, shredders, threshers, etc.

In fact in 2001, it was pointed out, the department even allocated around P1.5 billion for the purchase of farm inputs and implements, which is considerably higher than the P728 million alloted for the fertilizer program.

Bolante claimed that he had merely downloaded the fertilizer fund leaving the regional directors to implement the project. He did not make any claim that regional directors were part of the planning, and always maintained that it was his office which prepared the list of proponents of the project, notifying only the regional directors involved of the availability of funds and the allocation amounts.

During the Nov. 25 hearing, the regional directors claimed they were only authorized to sign up to a maximum of only P1 million in purchase orders, but Chio presented an alleged purchase order worth P3 million signed by Bolante. Bolante then clarified the document being shown to senators was not actually a purchase order but a purchase request.

The aforementioned director was practically the only one who sought authority from Bolante’s office to handle the procurement of farm inputs in his area of jurisdiction. So, Bolante signed the purchase request and directed the DA field office in Region 11 to conduct the bidding for the farm inputs. This act of Bolante in signing the purchase request was not a form of interference in the process of selecting a supplier, but was meant to give the concerned official the authority to hold a bidding in accordance with law.

And during the Nov. 28 hearing, all of the DA regional directors, except for Ricardo Obleda, confirmed that Bolante had never called them up to give instructions to favor a certain supplier or to interfere in the implementation of the fertilizer project.

Most telling, however, was the Commission on Audit (CoA) report which attested that the P728-million fertilizer fund disbursed in 2004 by Bolante was totally accounted for and that 91 percent had already been officially liquidated. The CoA also indicated that Bolante was never invloved in the actual procurement of the farm implements and inputs, and even reported that not a single centavo ever found its way into the bank account of Bolante.