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Marcos’ deposition was at odds with testimony he gave in 2007 in a case the place the Philippines authorities was making an attempt to grab property related to the household from billionaire Lucio Tan, whose sprawling conglomerate touched many aspects of the financial system. Tan was one of many dictator’s shut enterprise associates and paid kickbacks to him, in keeping with the PCGG. Requested in an article revealed within the Los Angeles Instances in 1987 if paperwork exhibiting he paid $11 million to Marcos Sr. had been correct, Tan answered, “Add one zero, possibly two.”
In a transcript of Marcos’ testimony within the 2007 case, reviewed by Reuters, he remembers being referred to as into his father’s workplace earlier than they had been exiled to Hawaii in 1986 and proven “Shares of Inventory” and property titles. “He at that time instructed me that he would really like me to familiarize myself with the operations of among the enterprises that we’ve pursuits in and that Mr. Lucio Tan was going to assist me,” Marcos instructed the court docket.
Throughout a number of conferences, Tan “laid out the possession construction” of firms the household had a stake in, Marcos stated. In line with the transcript, Marcos then reeled off among the names of those companies and described intimately how among the corporations had been structured.
It was half of a bigger effort to do a listing “of all these enterprise pursuits that we’ve,” Marcos instructed the court docket. “My sister Imee, who has authorized coaching, was given the job of conducting the authorized audit, and I used to be given the job to go to as many of those enterprises as I may.”
Tan and Imee Marcos didn’t reply to questions from Reuters.
Throughout his father’s reign, Marcos studied at Oxford College within the Seventies, the place he acquired a “particular diploma” in social research however didn’t full a full diploma, the college stated. He additionally studied for an MBA on the Wharton Faculty of the College of Pennsylvania in the USA between 1979 and 1981, however didn’t full the course, he stated.
“They’ve by no means been repentant. They’ve by no means acknowledged these (property) are ill-gotten wealth.”
In 1991, two years after Marcos Sr. died, Imelda and her youngsters had been allowed to return to the Philippines. Imelda herself has since confronted a number of prison costs, whereas the household has been concerned in scores of civil fits searching for to get better their riches.
Imelda, who lives in Manila, has solely been convicted within the 2018 graft case. The court docket dominated that the case concerned the switch of greater than $300 million of “ill-gotten wealth” to abroad financial institution accounts whereas she was Minister of Human Settlements, a place she held throughout her husband’s presidency. PCGG chairman Agbayani stated Marcos had been acquitted in three earlier prison circumstances and that there have been different prison circumstances nonetheless pending.
After returning, Imelda twice ran unsuccessfully for president and was elected to Congress for 4 phrases. Her son has additionally spent most of his time in politics since returning, together with two stints within the Home of Representatives, interspersed with a time period as governor of the household’s stronghold within the province of Ilocos Norte. Marcos additionally served as governor and vice-governor of the province throughout his father’s rule. He was elected to the Senate in 2010 earlier than unsuccessfully operating for vice chairman in 2016, dropping to Leni Robredo.
Robredo, a human rights lawyer, is now Marcos’ foremost rival within the presidential race and has focused the household’s wealth in the course of the marketing campaign. “If the son advantages from the daddy’s sin, he’s additionally responsible,” she stated in February. “If you’re benefiting from the very act for which your father was being judged, you must also be judged.”
The household negotiated two offers with the Philippines authorities in 1992 and 1993 that will have allowed them to maintain a part of their wealth, court docket data present. In line with the later deal, they’d have saved 25% of $356 million present in Swiss financial institution deposits. However the offers had been by no means approved by the presidents on the time and had been declared null and void by the courts.
The courts have additionally repeatedly rejected the Marcos household’s assertion that their wealth was legitimately obtained.
Primarily based on the tax filings of the dictator and his spouse, the Philippines authorities has stated that the Marcoses earned the equal of $304,372.43 in “identified lawful revenue” throughout Ferdinand Marcos’ presidency. The Supreme Courtroom accepted that calculation in a 2012 ruling that rejected a petition from Marcos and his mom to maintain $40 million in a Merrill Lynch checking account claimed by the Philippines authorities. The assertion by Marcos and his mom that the late president’s respectable revenue was far larger was “a sham and evidently calibrated to compound and confuse the problems,” the court docket stated.
Legendary gold
In interviews over the a long time, Marcos and his mom have referred to an enormous haul of gold belonging to the dictator to elucidate their wealth. Marcos has stated that his father constructed his wealth from buying and selling in treasured metals earlier than he grew to become president in 1965, in keeping with Rappler, a neighborhood media outlet. In interviews, Imelda Marcos has stated her husband had six to seven tonnes of gold when he entered politics.
In a 2015 interview with native media, Marcos stated his father found the so-called Yamashita treasure – a legendary cache of bullion supposedly left by Japanese troops retreating from the Philippines in 1945.
Requested in regards to the gold in a March interview on the native One Information channel, Marcos modified tack. “It doesn’t exist,” he stated.
Even so, the reason of a gold haul underpinning the household wealth has gained forex on social media. One outlandish concept posits that the descendants of the Tallano dynasty that when dominated a lot of the Philippines gave Marcos Sr. and a Catholic priest a 30% share of 640,000 tonnes of gold that the pair helped them get better from the Vatican and return to the Philippines after World Battle Two. The speculation has been promoted on social media by the political social gathering initially based by the dictator and which is now supporting Marcos Jr. The World Gold Council says solely round 205,000 tonnes of gold has been mined all through historical past.
The VERA Information, an impartial Philippines fact-checking group that has a contract with Fb, stated disinformation about Marcos and his household’s wealth surged final yr. A number of posts on Fb and Youtube proclaimed that the household will give a big share of its wealth to the general public if Marcos wins workplace. One of many foremost drivers of the social media visitors was a Fb group referred to as “Bongbong Marcos for Progress, Peace and Prosperity 2022,” in keeping with the VERA Information.
In a press release, a spokesman for Fb-owner Meta, Kevin McAlister, stated the group had “repeatedly shared content material that our fact-checking companions have debunked, which implies it might probably’t monetize or promote and we transfer all its posts decrease in Feed so fewer folks see them.” A warning label had been added to “a number of posts from this group,” he stated.
Ruel Andayo, 44, a coconut vendor in Manila, instructed Reuters he was voting for Marcos due to the “promise” that the household’s wealth could be shared with the folks. Requested the place he received the data, he replied: “Somebody simply stated.”
“Bongbong’s wealth was not stolen. It was simply an try by the yellows to damage him,” Andayo added. He was referring to the yellow coloration related to the “Folks Energy” protesters who ousted Marcos in 1986.
On the marketing campaign path, Marcos has appeared at mass rallies with Sara Duterte-Carpio, the daughter of outgoing President Rodrigo Duterte and his operating mate for vice chairman. At a rally within the metropolis of Lipa south of Manila in April, the group was handled to fireworks and performances by native pop stars.
Marcos’ son, Ferdinand Alexander Marcos, popularly referred to as Sandro, can also be enjoying a task. He’s operating for Congress and has featured closely within the marketing campaign, particularly on-line, the place his posts have drawn adoring responses from younger ladies.
Political analysts say a decades-long public relations effort to change perceptions about his father’s presidency, a lot of it disseminated by way of social media, has benefited Marcos. However key to his frontrunner standing, they add, is his partnership with Duterte-Carpio.
Ronald Holmes, president of Pulse Asia, a Manila-based polling agency, instructed Reuters that Marcos’ help doubled after he partnered in November with Duterte-Carpio. The transfer garnered him mass help from the Duterte stronghold within the southern island of Mindanao and massive cities like Cebu the place he had beforehand languished. Within the multi-ethnic Philippines, “many citizens choose candidates on ethnic-linguistic strains,” Holmes stated.
By no means ‘repentant’
Whereas Marcos has stated the household shouldn’t be a celebration to any ongoing court docket circumstances, PCGG chairman Agbayani instructed Reuters that in “all pending civil circumstances for restoration” of the wealth, Marcos and his sister Imee “substituted their deceased father as heirs in a consultant capability, pursuant to our guidelines of court docket.”
Antonio Carpio, a former Supreme Courtroom justice, instructed Reuters the Marcos household has opposed “each transfer” of the Philippines authorities to get better its wealth, together with lodging frequent appeals of court docket selections.
“They’ve by no means been repentant,” stated Carpio. “They’ve by no means acknowledged these (property) are ill-gotten wealth.”
Marcos has been personally concerned in among the appeals. In January 2020, he filed a movement to the Supreme Courtroom supporting the objection by his mom and his sister Irene to a ruling that rejected the household’s possession of greater than 150 artworks, together with the lacking masterpieces. The case, which is listed as nonetheless pending by the PCGG, has been litigated for 31 years.
Irene Marcos didn’t reply to questions from Reuters.
In the USA, the household has used comparable ways to thwart authorized motion towards them. One such case includes a category motion heard by the U.S. District Courtroom in Hawaii searching for redress for victims of martial regulation, a interval that prolonged for nearly half of Marcos Sr.’s presidency. Throughout this time, some 70,000 folks had been imprisoned, 34,000 had been tortured and over 3,200 had been killed, in keeping with Amnesty Worldwide.
The case was launched two months after the Marcos household went into exile in Hawaii. In 1995, the district court docket awarded virtually $2 billion to 9,539 victims. The Marcoses lodged a minimum of three unsuccessful appeals earlier than a remaining contempt order and a further $353 million penalty had been imposed on Marcos and his mom by the court docket in 2011 – a ruling additionally they appealed. Nonetheless, solely about $37 million of the $2 billion award has been recovered from the gross sales proceeds of artworks and property owned by the household in the USA, stated Philadelphia-based lawyer Robert Swift, who launched the category motion.
Mila Sibayan, 63, is likely one of the plaintiffs. She was arrested in 1983 and detained for 3 years in a army base for serving to lead a petition opposing a pulp mill owned by a {golfing} accomplice of the dictator. Sibayan says she was sexually molested by a soldier and held in painful stress positions throughout interrogations. In a single occasion, she was jammed right into a steel drum with one other girl and rolled across the army base. Sibayan stated her husband, who was an activist and in addition one of many plaintiffs, was overwhelmed with a picket plank and a rifle butt. He handed away in September.
Sibayan stated she and her husband filed an affidavit about their detention, however not had a duplicate. They acquired a complete of about 180,000 pesos in 2010 and 2014 (about $3,400 at this time). On the time, they had been a working couple with two youngsters dwelling on a mixed revenue of $95 per thirty days.
“You may by no means put a worth on the sort of struggling we endured,” Sibayan stated.
The president, who serves a single six-year time period, additionally chooses the heads of different authorities our bodies that would play a task in recovering the household’s wealth. The central financial institution governor, who’s chosen by the president, doubles as the top of the nation’s anti-money laundering council, in keeping with the council’s web site. The president additionally selects the top of the nation’s anti-corruption fee.
Marcos has questioned whether or not there have been widespread human rights abuses throughout his father’s rule. As president, he would additionally appoint the chairman of the human rights fee.
Relating to the judicial system, the president has intensive powers. In addition to appointing prosecutors and the solicitor-general, who represents the federal government in court docket, the president additionally appoints judges.
Agbayani stated he believed the PCGG ought to full its work on “the Marcos ill-gotten wealth” in seven years. “Which means all litigation is terminated by that point,” he stated. “All recovered property are offered/privatized by that point.”
Antonio La Vina, professor of regulation and politics on the Ateneo de Manila College, is anxious this received’t occur. If Marcos wins, he stated, then prosecutors and the PCGG is not going to pursue the pending court docket circumstances involving the household’s wealth for his whole presidential time period.
“For six years, circumstances is not going to transfer,” La Vina instructed Reuters, “so they may die a pure dying.”
Extra reporting by Peter Blaza, Steve Stecklow, Elizabeth Culliford and Andrew MacAskill.
Plunder and Energy
By Tom Allard and Karen Lema
Photograph modifying: Eloisa Lopez
Artwork path: Catherine Tai
Edited by Peter Hirschberg
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