Supreme Court to resume en banc session Tuesday

After a six-week recess, Supreme Court justices will resume their regular en banc session Tuesday with 233 items entered in the May 31 agenda. Court insiders on Monday said that one of the top cases on the list is government's appeal seeking the reversal of the high court's April 12, 2011 ruling that upheld the legitimacy of business tycoon Eduardo "Danding" Cojuangco Jr.'s 20-percent stake in San Miguel Corporation (SMC). The SC justices are likewise expected to deliberate on the following cases or administrative matters:

• The petitions against the plan to postpone the August 2011 Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) elections to August 2013;
• Local Water Utilities Adminsitration and former Surigao del Sur Rep. Prospero Pichay's petition seeking to declare the abolition of the Presidential Anti-Graft Commission (PAGC) unconstitutional;
• The Ampatuan clan's alleged bribery of Eleventh Division Court of Appeals associate justices handling the bid of suspended ARMM Gov. Rizaldy "Zaldy" Ampatuan to junk the Department of Justice's multiple murder charges against him;
• Advocacy group Social Justice Society's petition seeking the closure of the Pandacan oil depots in Manila; and
• The Republic of the Philippines vs. Sandiganbayan, et al. on the compromise agreement between the Philippine Commission on Good Government (PCGG) and the late Potenciano Ilusorio, an alleged Marcos crony.

The SC last met en banc on April 12 during its yearly summer session in Baguio City. Danding's SMC shares The Supreme Court declared that Cojuangco is the legitimate owner of San Miguel Corp. shares equivalent to a 20 -percent stake in the diversified food and beverage conglomerate. The high court ruled that Cojuangco's SMC shares did not constitute ill-gotten wealth and did not form part of the so-called coconut levy fund —taxes exacted from coconut farmers during the time of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos. The PCGG had failed to substantiate its claim that Cojuangco acquired those shares illegally, the SC said. The commission had alleged that when Cojuangco acquired the shares in 1983, he — as an officer and board member of the United Coconut Planters Bank (UCPB) — violated his obligations toward the clients under the relationship known as a fiduciary trust. The PCGG then claimed ownership of his 20-percent equity in SMC, saying the shares were bought using the coco levy funds, the same money Cojuangco and Marcos-era officials allegedly used to acquire UCPB and other companies. — VS, GMA News