Case Digest: Macapagal-Arroyo vs. People, G.R. No. 220598, July 19, 2016
RA 7659 | Criminal Law
Facts:
(1) On July 10, 2012, the Ombudsman charged in the Sandiganbayan former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) Budget and Accounts Officer Benigno Aguas, among others*, with plunder.
*PCSO & COA officials who were later dismissed by Sandiganbayan, except for Uriarte and Valdes who were at large.
(2) The information accuses GLORIA MACAPAGAL-ARROYO,xxx BENIGNO B. AGUAS, xxx, of the crime of PLUNDER, as defined by, and penalized under Section 2 of Republic Act (R.A.) No. 7080, as amended by R.A. No. 7659.
(3) Thereafter, several of the accused separately filed their respective petitions for bail. In the case of petitioners GMA and Aguas, the Sandiganbayan, through the resolution dated November 5, 2013, denied their petitions for bail on the ground that the evidence of guilt against them was strong.
(4) After the Prosecution rested its case, petitioners separately filed their demurrers to evidence asserting that the Prosecution did not establish a case for plunder against them. Sandiganbayan denied the demurrers of GMA, Aguas (and Valencia), holding that there was sufficient evidence showing that they had conspired to commit plunder.
(5) On the Demurrer filed by Arroyo and Aguas, Sandiganbayan found strong evidence of guilt against Arroyo and Aguas, only as to raiding the public treasury by withdrawing and receiving, in several instances, from the Confidential/Intelligence Fund from PCSO’s accounts, and/or unlawfully transferring or conveying the same into their possession and control through irregularly issued disbursement vouchers and fictitious expenditures.
(6) The Sandiganbayan later also denied the respective Motions for Reconsideration of GMA and Aguas.
Issue:
(I) WoN the State sufficiently established the existence of conspiracy.
(II) WoN the State sufficiently established all the elements of the crime of plunder:
a. Was there evidence of amassing, accumulating or acquiring ill-gotten wealth in the total amount of not less than P50,000,000.00?
b. Was the predicate act of raiding the public treasury alleged in the information proved by the Prosecution?
Defense:
GMA points out that all that the State showed was her having affixed her unqualified “OK” on the requests for the additional CIFs by Uriarte. She argues that such act was not even an overt act of plunder because it had no immediate and necessary relation to plunder by virtue of her approval not being per se illegal or irregular.
Held:
GRANTED.
(I) The Prosecution did not properly allege and prove the existence of conspiracy among GMA, Aguas and Uriarte.
To start with, the Sandigabayan conclusion that GMA had been the mastermind of plunder was plainly conjectural and outrightly unfounded considering that the information did not aver at all that she had been the mastermind; hence, the Sandiganbayan thereby acted capriciously and arbitrarily. In the second place, the treatment by the Sandiganbayan of her handwritten unqualified “OK” as an overt act of plunder was absolutely unwarranted considering that such act was a common legal and valid practice of signifying approval of a fund release by the President.
Prosecution sought to show was an implied conspiracy to commit plunder among all of the accused on the basis of their collective actions prior to, during and after the implied agreement. Prosecution did not allege that the conspiracy among all of the accused was by express agreement, or was a wheel conspiracy or a chain conspiracy.
The law on plunder requires that a particular public officer must be identified as the one who amassed, acquired or accumulated ill-gotten wealth.
Surely, the law requires in the criminal charge for plunder against several individuals that there must be a main plunderer and her co-conspirators, who may be members of her family, relatives by affinity or consanguinity, business associates, subordinates or other persons.
In other words, the allegation of the wheel conspiracy or express conspiracy in the information was appropriate because the main plundered would then be identified in either manner.
Here, considering that 10 persons have been accused of amassing, accumulating and/or acquiring ill-gotten wealth aggregating P365,997,915.00, it would be improbable that the crime charged was plunder if none of them was alleged to be the main plunderer. As such, each of the 10 accused would account for the aliquot amount of only P36,599,791.50, or exactly 1/10 of the alleged aggregate ill-gotten wealth, which is far below the threshold value of ill-gotten wealth required for plunder.
We are not talking about the sufficiency of the information as to the allegation of conspiracy, however, but rather the identification of the main plunderer sought to be prosecuted under RA 7080 as an element of the crime of plunder.
Despite the silence of the information on who the main plunderer or the mastermind was, the Sandiganbayan readily condemned GMA as the mastermind despite the absence of the specific allegation in the information to that effect. Even worse, there was no evidence that substantiated such sweeping generalization.
GMA’s approval of Uriarte’s requests for additional CIFs did not make her part of any design to raid the public treasury as the means to amass, accumulate and acquire ill-gotten wealth. Absent the specific allegation in the information to that effect, and competent proof thereon, GMA’s approval of Uriarte’s requests, even if unqualified, could not make her part of any criminal conspiracy to commit plunder or any other crime considering that her approval was not by any means irregular or illegal.
(II)
a. No proof of amassing, or accumulating, or acquiring ill-gotten wealth of at least P50 Million was adduced against GMA and Aguas.
The corpus delicti of plunder is the amassment, accumulation or acquisition of ill-gotten wealth valued at not less than P50,000,000.00. The failure to establish the corpus delicti should lead to the dismissal of the criminal prosecution.
As regards the element that the public officer must have amassed, accumulated or acquired ill-gotten wealth worth at least P50,000,000.00, the Prosecution adduced no evidence showing that either GMA or Aguas or even Uriarte, for that matter, had amassed, accumulated or acquired ill-gotten wealth of any amount. There was also no evidence, testimonial or otherwise, presented by the Prosecution showing even the remotest possibility that the CIFs of the PCSO had been diverted to either GMA or Aguas, or Uriarte.
b. The Prosecution failed to prove the predicate act of raiding the public treasury
To discern the proper import of the phrase raids on the public treasury, the key is to look at the accompanying words: misappropriation, conversion, misuse or malversation of public funds (noscitur a sociis).
To convert connotes the act of using or disposing of another’s property as if it were one’s own; to misappropriate means to own, to take something for one’s own benefit; misuse means “a good, substance, privilege, or right used improperly, unforeseeably, or not as intended;” and malversation occurs when “any public officer who, by reason of the duties of his office, is accountable for public funds or property, shall appropriate the same or shall take or misappropriate or shall consent, through abandonment or negligence, shall permit any other person to take such public funds, or property, wholly or partially.”
The common thread that binds all the four terms together is that the public officer used the property taken.
Considering that raids on the public treasury is in the company of the four other terms that require the use of the property taken, the phrase raids on the public treasury similarly requires such use of the property taken.
As a result, not only did the Prosecution fail to show where the money went but, more importantly, that GMA and Aguas had personally benefited from the same. Hence, the Prosecution did not prove the predicate act of raids on the public treasury beyond reasonable doubt.
Summation
Sandiganbayan completely ignored the failure of the information to sufficiently charge conspiracy to commit plunder against the petitioners; and ignored the lack of evidence establishing the corpus delicti of amassing, accumulation and acquisition of ill-gotten wealth in the total amount of at least P50,000,000.00 through any or all of the predicate crimes. The Sandiganbayan thereby acted capriciously, thus gravely abusing its discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction.
Notes:
An act or conduct becomes an overt act of a crime only when it evinces a causal relation to the intended crime because the act or conduct will not be an overt act of the crime if it does not have an immediate and necessary relation to the offense.