MANILA, Philippines – The Office of the Ombudsman has affirmed the dismissal of a plunder case filed against former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in connection with the alleged questionable sale of a 54.5-hectare property near the Iloilo Airport in 2007.
\nIn a 19-page resolution, Ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales approved the resolution of the Office of the Prosecutor General on Jan. 20, 2011 dismissing the plunder case against the former President, former foreign affairs secretary Alberto Romulo, former executive secretary Eduardo Ermita, former finance secretary Margarito Teves, former Finance Privatization Council head John Philip Sevilla and Andrew Tan of Megaworld Corp. for \u201cutter lack of merit.\u201d
\nOverall Deputy Ombudsman Orlando Casimiro, Preliminary Investigation Administrative Adjudication and Review Bureau Director Mary Antonette Yalao and Graft Investigation and Prosecution Officer 1 Francis Euston Acero also signed the ruling.
\nThe ruling was issued after reviewing the findings of the Department of Justice, which also recommended the junking of the complaint filed by one Danilo Lihaylihay for the sale of the property to Megaworld Corp.
\nIn dismissing the complaint, Morales said the complainant failed to present proof of the second element of plunder, which is the acquisition of ill-gotten wealth.
\n\u201cA cursory look at the allegations made by complainant Lihaylihay shows that he did not allege, much less present any evidence, that either respondent Arroyo, Romulo, Ermita, Teves or Sevilla acquired ill-gotten wealth in the manner described under Section 1(d) of the Anti-Plunder Law,\u201d the anti-graft agency said.
\nMorales added that complainant\u2019s allegation that there was conspiracy among the respondents in the acquisition of ill-gotten wealth, \u201cis an act of sophistry that the law does not support.\u201d
\n\u201cAt the end of the day, there is absolutely nothing on record that supports a finding that a public officer was the ultimate beneficiary of the sale of the Iloilo Airport,\u201d she said.
\n Lihaylihay filed the complaint for the alleged failure to assess, levy and collect the capital gains tax from the sale of the Iloilo Airport to Megaworld Corp. which the complainant said constitutes theft of public funds and should be considered plunder.
\nhttp:\/\/www.philstar.com\/nation\/article.aspx?publicationSubCategoryId=67&articleId=782103<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MANILA, Philippines – The Office of the Ombudsman has affirmed the dismissal of a plunder case filed against former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in connection with the alleged questionable sale of a 54.5-hectare property near the Iloilo Airport in 2007. In a 19-page resolution, Ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales approved the resolution of the Office of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15941","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-press-releases"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.clearwaterphilippines.com\/resort\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15941","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.clearwaterphilippines.com\/resort\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.clearwaterphilippines.com\/resort\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.clearwaterphilippines.com\/resort\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.clearwaterphilippines.com\/resort\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15941"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.clearwaterphilippines.com\/resort\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15941\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.clearwaterphilippines.com\/resort\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.clearwaterphilippines.com\/resort\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.clearwaterphilippines.com\/resort\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}