The high court's ruling came a month into the Estrada presidency, and six months after Mrs. Marcos filed her petition asking the court to reconsider and reverse her conviction on the Light Rail Transit case.

Her co-accused former Transportation Secretary Jose Dans was earlier acquitted.

In a resolution dated Aug. 5, 1998, the third division headed by Chief Justice Andres Narvasa, decided to refer the controversial graft case to the court en banc for re-hearing.

But Narvasa clarified that it was still up to the court en banc--composed of 14 justices--whether it would accept the case or not.

On Jan. 29, 1998, the tribunal's third division upheld Mrs. Marcos's conviction for the lease of a lot of the Light Rail Transit Authority (LRTA) in Pasay City to a private foundation, the Philippine General Hospital Foundation Inc.

Voting 3-2, the division agreed with the anti-graft court's conclusion that the terms of the lease contract were grossly disadvantageous to the government, and affirmed her 12-year sentence.

But it acquitted Mrs. Marcos on one count of graft.

Those who voted for Mrs. Marcos's conviction were Narvasa, Artemio Panganiban and Flerida Ruth Romero who wrote the decision.

Those who voted for an acquittal were Justices Ricardo Francisco and Jose Melo.

On March 27, a month after the Marcos petition was filed, Narvasa said it was not likely that the case would be referred to the full bench, since those cases which are elevated only involve death penalty cases.

Narvasa told reporters during the Manila Overseas Press Club judiciary night that the cases that go to the en banc were ''well-defined.''

''These involve death penalty cases. And I think the penalty imposed on her (Mrs. Marcos) is lower than death, that is why the case against the former First Lady went to that division (SC's third division) and is still in that division,'' he said then.

The trail of how the division came to decide that the motion be elevated to the full court for a re-hearing was just the latest in a string of victories of the Marcos family, previously villified over the deposed strongman's abuse of power, jailing of critics and looting of government coffers during his 20-year rule.

In June, the Office of the Solicitor General submitted a 34-page comment recommending the acquittal of Mrs. Marcos, saying there was no basis for her conviction.

''The general proposition is that the conviction of only one defendant in a prosecution for conspiracy will not be upheld where the disposition of the charges against all other conspirators is by acquittal,'' stated then Solicitor General Romeo dela Cruz in his comment on Mrs. Marcos' motion for reconsideration.

After public outcry against this, then President Fidel Ramos replaced Dela Cruz with Silvestre Bello III, who served concurrently as justice secretary, and directed the withdrawal of this comment which could jeopardize the government's case against the Marcoses.

On June 9, Bello submitted his manifestation and motion to withdraw the comment.

The new comment, supporting Mrs. Marcos's conviction, was dated June 15, 1998 and was admitted on June 19.

In the Aug. 5 resolution, the tribunal's third division ''resolved to note'' Mrs. Marcos's comment on these pleadings filed by the solicitor general.

The composition of the present third division which ruled for the motion for reconsideration's elevation to the court en banc is different from that which ruled on Marcos's conviction in January.

The two justices who voted in favor of Marcos's acquittal--Melo and Francisco--last January have been replaced with justices Fidel Purisima and Santiago Kapunan who had once served under Marcos's lead lawyer Estelito Mendoza, when he was still solicitor general.

Francisco has already retired, while Melo was transferred to another division in February.

In her 50-page motion for reconsideration, Mrs. Marcos claimed her conviction was an ''absurdity'' because it constituted selective conviction, having been sentenced to an offense for which she was not supposed to have been indicted.

She noted that she was convicted not for approving the unfavorable lease contract in a 7,340 square meter lot in Pasay City but for certifying the ensuing sub-lease agreement to Trans-National Construction Corp. (TNCC), which, she said, was never the subject of the criminal case before the Sandiganbayan.

''To convict (me) for executing the sub-lease agreement is to convict (me) for an offense not charged, in violation of the right of an accused to be informed of the nature or cause of the accusation against her,'' she said.

She added that the conviction last Jan. 29 was just ''political vendetta,'' initiated by people who were just trying to get back at her late husband Ferdinand.

The LRTA lots were allegedly rented out below fair market values, unduly favoring the PGH private foundation and defrauding the government by as much as P5 million annually.

Both Marcos and Dans had approved the lease contract in their capacities as PGHFI chairman and LRTA vice-chair, respectively.

The 7,340-square meter lot in Pasay City was leased to the PGHFI at P102,760 a month, undervalued by as much as half a million pesos.

The foundation later managed to sublease the property to a third party at P734,000 a month or seven times the amount of the original lease contract.

By Donna S. Cueto