MANILA - For the first time since the Department of Justice (DOJ) received cases filed by various government agencies and duped clients over the past 8 months, a resolution was finally released Friday.

The DOJ said that after preliminary investigations of the petition filed by Sen. Mar Roxas on behalf of 6 complainants, it found "probable cause" to pursue 10 counts of syndicated estafa versus Legacy founder Celso de los Angeles and 2 employees.

For reducing the case respondents to 3 from the original 20, the DOJ resolution was effectively a watered down version of the syndicated estafa case filed by Sen. Roxas.

A syndicated estafa is committed by a syndicate or at least 5 people. If a warrant of arrest is served, the respondents cannot post bail.

Since the DOJ resolution involves only 3 respondents, the case is effectively downgraded into a simple estafa. The respondents may be allowed to post bail.

This means that when the DOJ eventually files the simple estafa case in court, and if the judge would issue an arrest warrant, De los Angeles and the 2 officers may evade being jailed while the case is being heard.

According to a legal expert, such downgrade is effected if the "evidence would support only a lesser or lower offense."

Included, excluded

In the original case filed by Sen. Roxas, the respondents were De los Angeles and 19 board members and directors of the dissolved Legacy Consolidated Plans Inc. (LCPI), one of the pre-need firms under the Legacy Group.

However, only De los Angeles and his employees, Christine Limpin & Edgardo Marasigan were included in the DOJ resolution announced on Friday.

Limpin was Legacy's senior vice president for legal, while Marasigan was the corporate secretary.

"She is the Senior Vice President for Legal. As such, these require direct participation in the discussion with respect to the legal implications of the investments and operations of LCPI," Justice Secretary Agnes Devenadera told ABS-CBN News.

Excluded were Purita delos Angeles, Victorino delos Angeles, Madeline Cobbarubias, Atty. Norman Tiongson, Bishop Ignacio Soliba, Ladho Chugani, Ricardo Solomon, Arcatomy S. Guarin, Elvira P. Garcia, Cecille Invencion, Monina Vierneza-Dio, Elvira Nebre, Teresita Tica, Josefina Castañeda, and Agnes Santiago.

It also excluded Celso's wife and son, Ma. Concepcion and Nicolo Martin. Chief State Prosecutor Jovencito Zuño said they were not part of the operations.

The case filed by Sen. Mar has originally excluded 2 former Legacy executives—Carolina Hiñola and Namnama Pasetes-Santos—who were presented as witnesses in several Senate hearings.

Sen. Roxas chaired the Senate committee on trade and commerce, which presided over Legacy-related hearings held in the past months.

DOJ consolidates

Sen. Roxas filed the syndicated estafa case last March before the Makati City Prosecutor's Office. It was one of the high-profile cases filed against Legacy, its officers, and De los Angeles.

Due to the sheer volume of Legacy-related cases filed nationwide, the justice department has since consolidated over 100 cases filed by complainants in various courts.

Previously, the justice department was only handling cases filed by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), which regulates the 12 Legacy rural banks; the Securities and Exchange Commission, which regulates the 3 Legacy pre-need firms and investment activities of the group; and, the Philippine Deposit Insurance Corp. (PDIC), which is paying out P250,000 per insured and validated depositor.

The cases ranged from syndicated estafa, large scale estafa, and falsification of public and commercial documents. 

The BSP and PDIC have each hired external experts in fraud and legal investigation to build their cases. Their battery of investigators have combed through boxes of documents to establish syndicated estafa ones, which are non-bailable.

Warrant of arrest

However, the first warrant of arrest did not come from the cases filed by the BSP and PDIC, but from a syndicated estafa case filed by 3 investors from Cagayan de Oro City.

The complainants, who include a regional trial court judge, said they lost millions of pesos from Legacy's double-your-money-in-3-years scheme.

Only the Legacy-related cases filed in Cagayan de Oro City in the province of Misamis Oriental were not consolidated at the DOJ.

A regional trial court in Misamis Oriental issued the warrant of arrest against De los Angeles and 7 former Legacy executives last July.

However, even if the case is non-bailable, the businessman-turned-politician did not end up in jail.

De los Angeles remains in a "hospital arrest" in a posh hospital in Quezon City. He is said to be suffering from cancer.

The arrest warrant was also served on Christine Antenor Cruz-Limpin, who is included in the case considered in the the justice department's resolution.

Previous Senate hearings have revealed that some of the money culled from the public funded De los Angeles' political campaign expenses and his alimony for his estranged spouse. Politicians have taken on the cause of Legacy depositors and pre-need plan holders--a number of them lowly rural folks whose lifetime savings evaporated in a snap. 

Taxpayers will have to shoulder some of the P14 billion-worth of deposit insurance for Legacy rural banks' clients. The other Legacy investors will have to wait for liquidation proceeds of the companies' and Legacy officers’ assets—if the courts eventually convict them.

Overseas Filipino workers, military and police personnel, and even the government are among those caught in the Legacy mess.

De los Angeles is considered the local version of American billion-dollar swindler, Bernard Madoff. The disgraced Wall Street financier, who faced 11 criminal counts, has already been sentenced to 150 years in prison.

Waiting for results

Other complainants, whose cases are also lodged at the justice department, told abs-cbnnews.com/Newsbreak that they, too, are waiting for the department's action on their own cases.

"We have already done our part in investigating and filing the cases," BSP Assistant Governor and General Counsel Juan de Zuñiga said in a phone interview. "We have been waiting for results"

Nonetheless, Zuñiga welcomed the resolution. "This supports our position that De los Angeles has been committing, together with accomplices, irregularities in the rural banks and companies under their control."

The BSP has filed at least 7 Legacy-related cases at the justice department. These involve 4 syndicated estafa, 1 large scale estafa, and 2 for falsification of public and commercial documents.

"We hope that the appropriate information be promptly filed with the courts so that trial can proceed therein," Zuñiga stressed.

PDIC president Jose C. Nograles echoed the BSP's sentiments.

Nograles said in a text message: "We are pleased with the decision of the DOJ and we are hopeful and confident that the 3 syndicated estafa cases and 9 other cases we filed will soon be given due course as well."

So far, the deposit insurer has already paid off P1.43 billion-worth of valid claims to depositors, while P843.3 million is scheduled for release soon. - with reports from Timi Nubla, ABS-CBN News and Lala Rimando, abs-cbnNEWS.com/Newsbreak

Erratum: We earlier reported that the resolution from the Department of Justice was based on a syndicated estafa case.