MikeLigalig.com

Scammers sell Marcos ‘legacy’ to poor Pinoys

JOEL F. ARIATE JR.
SEPTEMBER 25, 2017


P30 DREAMS Thousands throng the University of the Philippines Los Baños campus to claim the million pesos promised them by a cooperative, in exchange for a P30 booklet on Marcos’ “achievements” they had to buy. —PHOTO BY KIMMY BARAOIDAN

In the morning of Sept. 23, 2017, the 45th anniversary of the actual declaration of martial law by former president Ferdinand Marcos, thousands gathered at the University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB) Freedom Park in Laguna.

They said they came to collect the P10,000 they were promised every month for the next four years as claimants to their share of the Marcos wealth. The proof of their claim: a pamphlet purchased for P30, extolling Marcos for his ‘immortal legacy.’

Behind the pamphlet was an organization that had already been discredited by the Securities and Exchange Commission and whose leaders had already been charged with estafa by the National Bureau of Investigation way back in 2013.

So what was this gathering all about? Was there a hidden hand and a hidden agenda that set this in motion? To find some answers to these questions, I go back to my hometown and to a story my mother told me.

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Through a friend who attended that program, my mother would learn that the speakers ended their event by convincing the crowd to provide details of their personal information and to buy a pamphlet, initially priced at P50, but later reduced to P30.

Marcos, the speakers told the crowd, bequeathed his wealth to the Filipino people in his last will and testament. The Marcos family was planning to honor the patriarch’s will. But the wealth could not simply be distributed to anyone. Each person’s identity had to be verified. So the people present were told to fill up personal information forms and to submit copies of their voter’s ID, birth certificate, marriage certificate driver’s license, or any such document that could prove who they are. With the pamphlet and their verified personal information, they would be entitled to an outright grant of P50,000.

Those gathered at the resort were asked to refer other interested beneficiaries. Designated coordinators handled the filling up of forms, the sales of the pamphlets, and the gathering of photocopies of the required documents. My mother later learned that the group that organized the event went by the name Bullion Buyer Ltd or BBL.

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The BBL claims that the organization was “established in 2004 which has about 3,100 officers and participating leaders nationwide.” It claims to have the humanitarian objective “of creating one social family and brotherhood of hearts.”

The organizer of the gathering at the UPLB is called One Social Family Credit Cooperative.


People who went to the UP Los Baños campus on Sept. 23 brought with them a pamphlet purchased for P30 produced by a group called Bullion Buyers Ltd. The pamphlet was a collection of propaganda materials on former president Ferdinand Marcos. Photo by Luis Liwanag.

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Pyramiding scheme?

Destura and Cantos went into hiding after a charge of syndicated estafa was filed against them in 2013. Destura is said to be a son of Pedro Destura, a mayor of Prieto Diaz, Sorsogon from 1969 to 1971. The younger Destura claimed that Marcos entrusted to his father a still undetermined tonnage of gold deposits in Switzerland.

Emmanuel Destura surfaced at Los Baños yesterday, this time identifying himself as the chair of the One Social Family Credit Cooperative.

The continuing presence of BBL in various parts of the country prodded the Securities and Exchange Commission to issue an advisory on April 6, 2017 warning all local government authorities that the company is unregistered, and that its modus operandi violates the Securities Regulation Code.

From the syndicated estafa charge sheet, it appears that the group’s modus operandi is rather straightforward. The initial recruits were tasked to organize events in the different localities in the country and were initially called participating leaders. They also had to pay the organization P2,000. They were told they would be prioritized once the Marcos wealth is distributed. In exchange for their contribution, they would first receive P1 million and then 30 days later, $1 million.

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“President Duterte cannot do all his good plans for the country without unity. Can we now blame President Duterte if he declares Martial Law in the future if that is the only way in order to achieve peace, unity and prosperity,” the pamphlet continues.

Quite coincidentally, Duterte announced less than a month ago that the Marcoses were willing to return the wealth that rightfully belonged to the Filipino people. “The Marcoses – I will not name the spokesman – said that they'll open everything and probably return those that had been discovered,” Duterte said.

Former senator Bongbong Marcos has distanced his family from the BBL. He similarly denied any involvement in the gathering at UPLB. “We do not know of nor have any involvement of any of these gatherings. It's a scam pure and simple,” he said. “I have repeatedly warned the public against unscrupulous individuals who have been using our family to advance their personal interests.”

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Also, a journalist from the Marcos crony press known for her closeness to Imelda Marcos distributed copies of this book to those who were interested. The BBL pamphlet is an abridged version of this compendium.

Pages 5 and 6 of the pamphlet mention Ferdinand Marcos's record of military service and the honors he received, many of which have been proven to be mere fabrications by Marcos. The entry is just a retyped version of a March 4, 1996 certification from the General Headquarters of the Armed Forces of the Philippines regarding Marcos’s military service. The one who encoded the certification from the AFP into the pamphlet was so faithful to the AFP text, even copying the line breaks from the original.

This AFP certification that is in both the pamphlet and the compendium lately resurfaced in the most unlikely of documents: the submission to the Supreme Court of Solicitor General Jose Calida arguing for the burial of Marcos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani.

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Through the pamphlet, Filipinos, often the poorest and most marginalized among us, are induced to literally buy into the Marcos propaganda. In the case of the Solicitor General, such fraud, like Marcos being the recipient of so many war medals, has now found its way into our jurisprudence—a Marcos myth attempting to pass itself off as established fact.

(Joel F. Ariate Jr. is a university researcher at the Third World Studies Center of the University of the Philippines Diliman. This article is based on a paper he presented at the opening of “The Remains of a Dictatorship: An International Conference on the Philippines under Marcos” organized by Philippine Studies: Historical and Ethnographic Viewpoints and the Dean’s Office, School of Social Sciences, Ateneo de Manila University on August 3 to 4, 2017.)

http://verafiles.org/

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