THE Sandiganbayan Fourth Division has denied the claim of Dennis Taningco, a former lawyer of the Presidential Commission on Good Government, to a 1 percent cut in the P25.22 billion proceeds of the 2007 sale of 111,415 shares of Philippine Telecommunications Investment Corp (PTIC) to Metro Pacific Assets Holding Co. and First Pacific Co. Ltd.

Taningco, former counsel for PCGG in Civil Case no. 0002, claimed his legal services and skills helped in the recovery of the shares so he is entitled to get a percentage, which the graft court said, is equivalent to at least P252.2 million.

"This is a staggering amount of money, by any stretch of imagination, to compensate a single. Taningco’s representations, for a period of around two-and-a-half years only, during which said counsel attended about 26 settings and prepared and filed about 45 pleadings in behalf of the plaintiff," the graft court said.

In its 14-page resolution promulgated last August 4, the graft court held that Taningco’s motion charging an attorney’s lien is improper as the government was not actually awarded a sum in the judgment.

The ruling was penned by Fourth Division chair Associate Justice Gregory Ong. Associate Justices Jose R. Hernandez and Samuel R. Martires concurred.

"(T)he judgment itself is not a money judgment or an award for a sum of money, but a judgment requiring the performance of a specific act, that is, for the ‘reconveyance to the Republic of the Philippines of the 111,415 PTIC shares’. There is a clear distinction between the nature of a judgment and its pecuniary or monetary significance or consequence," the division said.

But the ruling did not preclude Taningco’s right to pursue his demand for attorney’s fees by filing a money claim through a separate lawsuit.

It said, considering the amount involved, ‘it is only proper that the counsel should pay the appropriate docket and filing fees’.