MANILA (UPDATE) - The Sandiganbayan 4th Division has dismissed Civil Case No. 0007 involving the forfeiture of an estimated P267 million ill-gotten wealth of the Marcoses through spouses Fe and Ignacio Gimenez.

In a decision promulgated October 14, 2019, the anti-graft court granted the demurrer to evidence filed by the Gimenezes for insufficiency of evidence.

Photocopied documents as well as defective pieces of evidence cost the government millions of pesos as well as dollars siphoned off to foreign countries, expensive works of art as well as real estate properties under the name of the Gimenezes.

“Considering that the Republic is essentially seeking to prove the contents of the photocopied exhibits that it submitted, this Court finds the violation of the best evidence rule in the case at bar to be fatal to the Republic's cause,” the court said

Civil Case No. 0007 is among the cases filed by the Presidential Commission on Good Government and the Office of the Solicitor General in 1987.

In 2006, the Sandiganbayan had granted the motions to dismiss filed by the Gimenez couple but in 2016, the Supreme Court remanded the case back to the anti-graft court.

In the Sandiganbayan decision, it was noted that the government argued that the documentary evidence they submitted should not be considered mere photocopies but rather certified public records.

“In several decisions, the High Court has already held that the fact that these documents were collected by the PCGG in the course of its investigation does not make them per se public records,” the court said.

Among the photocopies noted by the Sandiganbayan in its decision were tax documents, summary of stock transactions, Central Bank of the Philippines documents, Statements of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth, local and foreign bank statements.

The Sandiganbayan ruling also noted that the government failed to authenticate private documents and that some of the affidavits were hearsay evidence.

The justices also said that some of the evidence will still have no probative value even if the defects were to be ignored because they cannot even decipher the documents.

“It must also be stated that some of the photocopied exhibits that were submitted by the Republic to this Court are so poor in quality that the letters and numbers stated therein are already unreadable thereby making it impossible for the Court to discern therefrom the points being sought to be established by the Republic,” the court said.

The decision was penned by Division Chairperson Alex Quiroz, with the concurrence of Associate Justices Reynaldo Cruz and Maria Theresa Mendoza-Arcega.

Last month, the same division dismissed Civil Case No. 0008 involving the supposed ill-gotten wealth of the Marcoses through the Tantoco family.

• Sandiganbayan dismisses P1 billion civil suit vs Marcoses, Tantocos

At least 19 other Marcos civil cases are still pending at the Sandiganbayan.

Meanwhile, Malacañang denied the Duterte administration had a hand in the case's dismissal.

"The Administration does not interfere with the judiciary. The rule of law must always prevail in courts regardless of who are the parties. Their decision must be accorded respect and obedience," Presidential spokesperson Salvador Panelo said in a statement.