Opinion ID: 1405642
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: The Baguio City Court proceeding regarding the buddha

Text: Roxas died on May 25, 1993. On April 20, 1995, his brother, Jose Roxas (Jose), commenced an action in Branch III of the Regional Trial Court of Baguio City, praying for release of the buddha statue being retained by the clerk of court and claiming that I and our family desire to keep the said buddha as a m[e]mento of our late brother, ROGELIO D. ROXAS. Jose's petition was supported by two of Roxas's sons; however, Jose admitted to the court that Roxas had had a number of children out of wedlock whose names he did not know because [Roxas] had several mistresses. At the initial hearing on the petition, conducted on April 28, 1995, Jose testified that he had been present when the raiding party confiscated the buddha. The court directed Jose to inspect the buddha in the clerk's possession and testify whether it was the same one taken from Rogelio Roxas. The court noted from its own observation that [i]t appears ... that the color is gold but it is superficial, it is only the outer part because there are parts where the color was chipoff [sic] and what you see is silver or white[.] Jose identified the buddha as the statue confiscated from Roxas's house. At a second hearing, held on May 15, 1995, Jose testified that the buddha that had been in Roxas's house was made of lead or copper but the reporters added that said Buddha was made of gold. He testified further that [Roxas] also knew it was made of lead but that Roxas had claimed that it was gold because he had been bribed by politicians to do so. Accordingly, Jose described his purpose in initiating the proceeding as follows: It is the claim of the reporter[s] that it was made of gold. The reporters are wrong. That's why if that Buddha will be given to me, I want it to be burned so that there will be no evidence against the Marcoses or it will not be a cause of shame to our country. When the court asked him what he meant by shame to our country, he responded that a politician will be able to use it against [Ferdinand Romualdo, aka] Bongbong[,] Marcos [II] .... [b]ecause it is still fresh in the minds of our people that his father was blamed for confiscating the Buddha but the truth is that he did not do it. What I mean is that this Buddha can be a ground for shame as it was a substitute for what was allegedly to be the golden Buddha and allegedly seized by President Marcos and so lest it will be used for that purpose, this should be melted and obliterated.... The trial court's record included a letter to the judge sent by Daniel Cathcart, the attorney for GBC and the Roxas Estate, dated June 27, 1995. The letter alleged that Imelda had met with Jose and offered him money to petition the court for the brass buddha and falsely identify it as the one taken from Rogelio. In the letter, Cathcart further stated: I understand that another hearing is set for sometime in the month of July at which time the court may turn over the fake Buddha to Jose Roxas. I bring these facts to your attention so that you can determine whether or not the facts are true, and under the facts as you find them, whether the Buddha should be turned over to Jose Roxas. Cathcart's letter concluded by asking the court to deny possession of the fake Buddha to Jose Roxas. Another Philippine national, Alberto Umali, also submitted a claim to the buddha, based on a purported contract with Roxas to share the treasure that Roxas found. Umali claimed that he needed custody of the buddha in order to use it as evidence in furtherance of his efforts to recover the actual golden buddha. The trial court filed an order containing its findings on May 30, 1996. The court determined that the buddha had been kept solely on the authority of a search and seizure order issued in 1971 and that the state was no longer legally justified in retaining it. The only question that remained was, as between Umali and Jose, who had the better claim to the buddha. The court ruled that Umali's contractual claim should be brought against the administrator of the Roxas Estate and was insufficient to support the release of the buddha to Umali in the current proceeding. Accordingly, the court released the buddha to Jose IN TRUST FOR the estate of the late Rogelio Roxas. The court added the following observations: Now, as to whether or not there is that controversial Golden Buddha different from the one now in custody of this Court, there is none. It bears repeating that the Republic of the Philippines with the vast resources under its command surely would and should have found that kind of treasure a long time since but the fact remains that it has not and the fact that it is made of gold appears merely to be the creation of unscrupulous minds. This Court feels, rather sadly, that when the true Marcos estate is finally unraveled and subsequently ordered to be divided, everyone wants to be counted in. And in the frenzied and mad scramble for a share of the late President Marcos's estate, everything and anything is possible and anyone who shall get a share, whether deserved or not, becomes a matter of who has the cutting edge and the speculation is that whoever gets hold of the Buddha, in the final analysis, has that edge. The court's order made no mention of Cathcart's letter or the facts alleged therein.