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The $10bn question: what happened to the Marcos millions?
islander:
Imelda’s diamond and pearl tiara. Photograph: Joel Nito/AFP/Getty Images
Even so, the PCGG has dragged some victories out of the swamp. In 2004, they finally retrieved the money from the five Swiss accounts. At an even slower pace, they seized the assets of half a dozen crony companies and recovered most of the coconut levy. They auctioned paintings, jewellery, silver and dozens of houses.
In total, the PCGG has succeeded in retrieving $3.7bn. That amounts to less than half the top estimate for what was taken by Marcos alone. In spite of their efforts, they have watched his associates retire to a life of self-indulgence with most of their fortunes intact. They have dozens of cases still bogged down in the courts, including 22 that started in 1987 or earlier.
The head of the PCGG, Richard Amurao, is a conspicuously decent lawyer, aged 41, who spent five years as a commissioner before becoming chairman last year. He points out how a single piece of Imelda’s jewellery could have paid for 2,000 young Filipinos to go through college. He is not giving up, yet reflects that it has been exhausting, and hard to see how they can win. “It is like the traffic jams in Manila. You begin to accept that it just is this way.”
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islander:
Deep in the vaults of the Central Bank, he says, there is a large collection of Imelda’s jewellery, due to be auctioned next month. It includes most of what was seized 30 years ago by US customs, another stash found in the palace, and a third intercepted at Manila airport as a friend of Imelda’s attempted to fly out of the country. Last year, Christie’s valued the collection; they identified treasures that had previously been missed, including a tiara with 25 pearls in a diamond frame seized from the Russian tsar’s family in the 1918 revolution. It is estimated to be worth more than $4m. Amurao’s workers have invented their own word to describe anybody who is extravagantly greedy: “Imeldific”.
What will happen if Bongbong Marcos is elected vice-president? Will he allow his mother access to the vaults to retrieve the jewellery she insists is hers? Will he kill the PCGG entirely? Bongbong, 58, started his political career before his family was exiled, becoming vice-governor of Ilocos Norte province in 1981, aged 23. Six years after exile, he returned to become a congressman. He recently denied any involvement in the legal moves that have blocked so much of the PCGG’s work. In February, Amurao issued a tough response, saying his claim was “belied by court records which show his involvement”. He listed cases in which Bongbong and his mother are still laying claim to what the PCGG says is ill-gotten wealth. Imelda is now 86, and actively campaigning for her son.
“The work is not finished,” Amurao says. “There is no statute of limitation on seeking justice. But the passing of time makes it more and more difficult to find new leads. Time is an ally for those who want us to forget. And if Bongbong wins, we don’t really see how we can do our work – not with the son of the former president only a heartbeat away from the presidency.”
https://www.theguardian.com/
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islander:
Marcos was a model of the politician as thief.
:(:(:(
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