Lucio Tan questions OSG, PCGG stand on bank case
MANILA, Philippines - Businessman Lucio Tan has questioned the failure of the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) and the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) to pose objections to a motion for intervention filed by a group of people claiming to be stockholders of the former General Bank and Trust Company (Genbank) in relation to Civil Case No. 0005.
In a 10-page manifestation filed through lawyers Estelito Mendoza and Orlando Santiago, Tan said Aderito Yujuico, Martina Gutierrez, Augusto Carpio, Ma. Trinidad Kalaw, Zenaida Santiago, Lourdes Yujuico, and Rosa Caram are claiming ownership of "shares of stocks and/or beneficial interests over Allied Banking Corp."
The Genbank group’s motion seeks return of these shares of stocks that the government is also claiming for itself in the case.
Catalino Generillo, a former special counsel for the PCGG who now representing Aderito Yujuico et al., said the disputed Allied Bank shares were already worth P688,201,301.00 back in March 29, 1977.
"They [OSG and PCGG] ... have apparently overlooked that the plaintiff in the instant case is the Republic of the Philippines which they are representing. The properties sought to be reconveyed to the Republic... include shares of stock in Allied Bank of defendants Lucio Tan et al," Tan said.
He added that the OSG and PCGG move is tantamount to abandonment of their mandates under the law.
"In implicitly agreeing that the shares of stock in Allied Bank alleged to be ‘ill-gotten wealth’ should be conveyed to Aderito Yujuico et al., and not to the Republic of the Philippines, the PCGG violates its mandate under Executive Order No. 1, while the Office of the Solicitor General, in so agreeing violates its basic responsibility as the lawyer of the Government," he added.
Mendoza and Santiago argued that in 2006, the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court had already rejected a lawsuit filed by stockholders of Genbank against the Central Bank involving the same Allied Bank assets.
Tan claimed that it was not the first time that PCGG and OSG "strayed from their responsibility."
He said that in 2008, Generillo then representing PCGG, even went to the United States on government funds to obtain documents in support of the claim of the Marcos family that they own 60% of Tan’s assets.
"In doing so, the PCGG and the OSG were clearly no longer asking that the shares of stock of Lucio C. Tan be reconveyed to the Republic of the Philippines but that 60 percent thereof belongs to the estate of former President Ferdinand Marcos," he said.
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