G.R. Nos. 104637-38 -

Ruling

Accordingly, said shares and all stock and cash dividends declared thereon after 1 April 1986 shall pertain, and are hereby assigned, to SMC. x x x 3.2. The First Installment Shares shall revert to the SMC treasury for dispersal pursuant to the SMC Stock Dispersal Plan attached as Annex "A-1" hereof. The parties are aware that these First Installment Shares shall be sold to raise funds at the soonest possible time for the expansion program of SMC. x x x 3.3. The sale of the shares covered by and corresponding to the second, third and fourth installments of the 1986 Stock Purchase Agreement is hereby rescinded effective 1 April 1986 and deemed null and void, and of no force and effect. Accordingly, all stock and cash dividends declared after 1 April 1986 corresponding to the second, third and fourth installments shall pertain to CIIF Holding Corporations. xxx" [8] (emphasis supplied) They likewise agreed to pay an " arbitration fee " of 5,500,000 SMC shares composed of 3,858,831 A shares and 1,641,169 B shares to the PCGG to be held in trust for the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program. [9] On March 23, 1990, the petitioners and the UCPB Group filed with the Sandiganbayan a Joint Petition for Approval of the Compromise Agreement and Amicable Settlement. The petition was docketed as Civil Case No. 0102. [10] On March 29, 1990, the Sandiganbayan motu proprio directed that copies of the Joint Petition be furnished to E. Cojuangco, Jr., M. Lobregat and others who are defendants in Civil Case No. 0033. The same SMC shares are the subject of Civil Case No. 0033 and alleged as part of the alleged ill-gotten wealth of former President Marcos and his "cronies." [11] On April 25, 1990, the Republic of the Philippines, through the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG), opposed [12] the Compromise Agreement and Amicable Settlement. It contended that the involved coco-levy funds, whether in the form of earnings or dividends therefrom, or in the form of the value of liquidated corporate assets represented by all sequestered shares (like the value of assets sold/mortgaged to finance the P500M first installment), or in the form of cash, or, as in the case of subject "Settlement," in the form of "proceeds" of sale or of "payments" of certain alleged obligations are public funds. As public funds, the coco-levy funds, in any form or transformation, are beyond or "outside the commerce," and perforce not within the private disposition of private individuals. [13] The reliefs prayed for by the Solicitor General state: "1. That the "Settlement" be stricken off the record or at most referred back to the PCGG for serious study and consideration. While the PCGG under its legal mandate (as sustained in G.R. No. 84895, "Republic v. Campos") in principle encourages settlement agreements on ill-gotten wealth to expedite recovery thereof for the benefit of the Government, the herein privately proposed " Settlement" subject of the petition contains private proposals of "uti