CA TURNS DOWN AMLAC APPEAL ON BOLANTE ACCOUNTS
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A RULING by the Court of Appeals (CA) has turned down an urgent motion of the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) to reinstate the freeze the bank accounts of controversial former Agriculture Undersecretary Jocelyn “Jocjoc” Bolante and several other individuals linked in the P728-million fertilizer fund scam.

The AMLC along with the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) filed on February 2, 2009 an urgent ex-parte petition for the issuance of a freeze order, docketed as C.A. G.R. AMLC No. 00024, against the banks accounts after the freeze order issued by the CA Former First Division lapsed on December 20, 2008.

The freeze order previously covered accounts and insurance policies at Banco de Oro Universal Bank, Citbank, N.A., East-West Bank, Maybank Phils. Inc, Metropolitan Bank and Trust Co., Philippine National Bank, Insular Life Assce. Company, Pru Life Insurance Corp. of UK, Manufacturers Life Ins. Co., BPI/MS Insurance Corp., Performance Foreign Exchange Corp., Prudential Bank, Bank of the Philippine Islands, Union Bank of the Philippines, Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation and Standard Chartered Bank.

Aside from Bolante, the AMLC identified the other holders of these various accounts as Molugan Foundation, Alliance for the Conservation of the Environment of Pangasinan, Inc., Sta. Lucia Education Association of Bulacan, Inc., Livelihood Corporation (Livecor), Ariel C. Panganiban, spouses Samuel and Katherine Bombeo.

The appellate tribunal conducted a summary hearing on AMLC’s ex-parte motion on February 12, 2009 to determine whether or not the freeze order should be lifted or extended beyond the 20-day period.

The CA noted that the parties in the new ex-parte motion and in C.A. G.R. AMLC 00014 filed on June 30, 2008 are the same and the rights asserted and the relief prayed for are substantially based on the same facts.

“Petitioner had already been granted the relief prayed for when the Former First Division issued a six-month freeze order in C.A. G.R. AMLC No. 00014 which it now seeks to obtain again in the instant petition. Otherwise, stated, the rule against forum shopping finds proper application here since the two cases are based on the same essential facts and circumstances thereby raising identical causes of action and issues,” the appellate court said..

“Consequently, the acts of petitioner constitutes a clear case of forum shopping, an act of malpractice that is proscribed and condemned as trifling with the court and abusing its processes. It is improper conduct that tends to degrade the administration of justice,” it added.

It can be recalled that in C.A. G.R. AMLC 00014, the CA, in a resolution released on July 1, 2008, issued a 20-day freeze order covering 70 accounts under the name of Bolante and several other individuals and entities believed to have been used to funnel the P728-million fertilizer fund.

The freeze order was later extended up to August 19, 2008 in order to allow AMLC to conduct and conclude an exhaustive and comprehensive financial investigation of the said accounts. On July 23, 2008, AMLC filed an ex-parte application with the Regional Trial Court of Makati City for an order authorizing it to conduct an inquiry into the accounts and investments covered by the freeze order. The lower court granted the application in a resolution issued on July 25, 2008. On August 20, 2008 the CA’s First Division issued a resolution extending for four months or until December 20, 2008 the freeze order.

In the same resolution penned Associate Justice Pampio A. Abarintos, the CA’s former First Division removed from the coverage of the freeze order more than 30 accounts in various banks and institutions after it was learned that these accounts have already been “cancelled, written off, closed or expired.”

On December 20, the freeze order lapsed without the filing of any forfeiture case against Bolante.

The OSG and AMLC counsels, in their new ex-parte motion, claimed that their failure to conclude the inquiry into Bolante’s bank accounts and related web accounts was due to the Supreme Court ruling on February 14, 2008 which declared an application for bank inquiry cannot be obtained ex parte.

Such supervening event, according to the government counsels, is a sufficient ground in seeking the issuance of a new freeze order.

But the appellate court noted that the said SC ruling in the “Eugenio case” was promulgated on February 14, 2008 or almost five months prior to the filing of AMLC’s ex-parte motion for the issuance of freeze order in C.A. G.R. AMLC No. 00014.

Instead of filing with the RTC of an application for bank inquiry with notices to concerned parties, the appellate court said AMLC opted to file its application ex-parte on July 23, 2008.

“Clearly, petitioner’s failure to conclude the inquiry into the bank accounts of respondents during the effectivity of the freeze order in C.A. G.R. AMLC No. 00014 was of its doing. Upon the promulgation of the decision in the Eugenio case as early as February 14, 2008, petitioner should have taken steps to expedite the bank inquiry that it was conducting,” the CA stressed.

The request of the petitioner for the issuance of another freeze order, according to the CA, is in effect an extension of the six-month freeze order already issued by the former First Division, which is prohibited under Section 53 of SC-Administrative Circular No. 05-11-04.

The said circular allows the extension of a freeze order for a period not exceeding six months. Concurring with the ruling were CA Presiding Justice Conrado Vasquez Jr., and Associate Justice Noel Tijam.