BEATING THE ODDS : MAKING THE RULE OF LAW WORK

By HAYDEE B. YORAC Chairman,
Presidential Commission on Good Government
Presented at the 2004 Magsaysay Awardees’ Lecture Series
Magsaysay Center, Manila, 01 September 2004

The People Power Revolution of 1986 was directed, among others, to restore democracy and human rights, to instill honesty in government, and to recover the vast wealth and resources taken from the coffers of government and restore them for the benefit of the people.

Thus, one of the first acts of the government installed after the fall of Marcos was to create the Presidential Commission on Good Government for the specific purpose of recovering the money and other resources and other forms of property from Marcos, his relatives, and his cronies. The money recovered was to be used to support the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program.

Thirty seven banner cases were filed and the power to sequester or freeze properties to prevent their dissipation or hiding was given to the Commission.

From 1986 to 2001, when the present Commission came to office, many things have come to pass. The Commission which started with high hopes has become disreputable, the cases were moving very slowly, questionable compromises were entered into and several attempts were made in the Philippine Congress to abolish the Commission.

The Commission that we found had only thirteen lawyers, litigating against practically all the big law offices in Metro Manila; the relations with the Solicitor General’s office had degenerated over time into antagonism; the records were in shambles; evidence was scattered and not properly filed.

Surely this was not the way to recover the stolen treasure of the Filipino people. The first thing to do was to address the problem of personnel. The primary ones were the lawyers. Since the new Commission was mostly members of the faculty of the College of Law of the University of the Philippines, we knew the young graduates who were intelligent, honest and committed to the cause of recovering the ill-gotten wealth. Furthermore, they did not as yet need big income as most had no families to support. Today we have more than forty lawyers, mostly young, working hand in hand with the team from the Solicitor General’s office.

Relations with the Solicitor General were reestablished and regular conferences are held between two teams of lawyers for good coordination in the handling of cases

Records are very important to be organized and systematized because we were dealing with cases. Evidence must be systematized and readily available when needed. At that time that we came to the Commission, the records were filed in so many places and were with different offices and officers without any indication as to where they were. At present, the records, whatever were not lost or stolen, have been computerized and can be retrieved as they are needed.

Cases had to be analyzed as to the causes for delay-- What were attributable to the Commission itself, what were attributable to the other parties, what were attributable to the courts. The delays that were the responsibility of the Commission were studied for remedial action, the delays attributable to the other parties were to be countered and the delays of the court were to be brought to its attention so it could be corrected.

The courts were very important in preventing delays therefore it was important to convince the court having control of the cases to expedite the cases.

Finally, it was important to get public support for what the Commission was trying to achieve. To gain impetus in the movement of cases the public must understand what the Commission was doing and create public interest in supporting the same.

I think we were able to achieve all of the above. The Marcos case that the Commission recently won with the recovery of 683 million dollars was the result of all these efforts. The money is now with the National Treasury for the support of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program. Two hundred million dollars have been set aside in favor of the victims of human rights violations during Martial Rule and is waiting legislation from congress.

The other big cases that the Commission is awaiting final judgment on are, to cite two, the Coconut Levy cases and the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company cases.

Like the Marcos case, the Coconut Levy cases languished in the Sandiganbayan since 1986 without so much as a pre-trial until 2001. In December 2001, the Commission was able to get a decision from the Supreme Court declaring the Coconut Levy Funds as prima facie public funds. The case was remanded to the Sandiganbayan for a finding of facts on whether the funds had in fact become private. To date, the Sandiganbayan has come out with decisions that the funds used to purchase the United Coconut Planters’ Bank were public funds and that, therefore, the bank and its stocks were public funds. It also came out with a ruling that the funds used to purchase twenty-seven percent of the stocks of San Miguel Corporation were purchased with funds traceable to the Coconut Levy Funds, and that the same were also public funds owned by the government in trust for the coconut farmers.

The Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company case is now pending decision by the Supreme Court. It can be decided any moment now.

I have worked in government in two different areas apart from good government-- elections and the peace process. Elections in the Philippines are among the most exciting, confusing and sometimes violent exercise. It takes a lot of discipline merely to administer the technical aspects of election laws. But if the Commission on Elections is fair and is trusted by the public to administer election laws even-handedly, it is not difficult to make the public abide by the rules. In the peace process, it is important not only to involve the antagonists in peace negotiations. It is necessary to involve the public at large, to make them stakeholders in the process of forging peace. In addition to the genuine desire of the parties to enter into a principled peace agreement, the public will have additional pressure on them to make compromises. #