On the occasion of Ferdinand Marcos Sr.'s birth anniversary
KARAPATAN Public Information
Reference: Kris Lacaba, CARMMA convenor, 0916-2813811
CARMMA secretariat, 0918-9790580
On the occasion of Ferdinand Marcos Sr.'s birth anniversary
The Campaign Against the Return of the Marcoses and Martial Law (CARMMA) takes the occasion of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos Sr.’s birth anniversary (September 11th) to raise anew the many festering issues against him and his kleptocratic family.
For starters, the Marcoses have still not paid the P203 billion of estate taxes that they owe. The Marcoses have been ordered to pay the amount following the Supreme Court’s 1997 final judgment in the Marcos estate case. The ruling became executory in March 1999, but the Bureau of Internal Revenue has never issued a demand letter nor initiated any other action to enforce it, obviously fearful of reprisals from Malacañang. “Imagine how many worthwhile projects this amount could have funded for the people’s welfare,” said CARMMA spokesperson Kris Lacaba.
Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the late dictator’s scion and namesake, has moreover succeeded in wielding his power to cause the dismissal of the last remaining ill-gotten wealth case against his family and the acquittal of his mother Imelda, who had been convicted of seven counts of graft in 2018 and sentenced to a total of 42 years imprisonment. Up to the time of her questionable acquittal, however, Imelda, had never seen the inside of a jail cell.
The Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) conservatively estimated the Marcoses’ ill-gotten wealth at P250 billion, but has admitted to acquiring only partial judgments on P34 billion worth of the Marcoses ill-gotten assets. “This leaves more than P200 billion more of their ill-gotten wealth untouched,” said Lacaba.
“There are also 67 ill-gotten wealth cases involving roughly P70 billion worth of assets whose forfeiture is currently on appeal, as admitted by the PCGG,” noted Lacaba. The sinister pattern of dismissals at the Sandiganbayan, he continued, will likely see Marcos Jr. wielding his power to ensure that the appeals process turns out decisions favorable to the Marcoses the way it did with Imelda’s graft cases.
“Then and now, Marcos Jr. is neck-deep in corruption,” stressed Lacaba. “He is proving that he is, indeed, his father’s son.”
“Marcos Jr.’s ‘sacrifice’ of his first cousin Martin Romualdez,” said Lacaba, “does not absolve him of his culpability as the author of the national budgets that are replete with ‘allocables’ and other items that enable corruption.”
In the course of decades, said Lacaba, we have seen the inutility of the PCGG and the justice system in holding the Marcoses accountable and in rendering justice to the people. He warned that it is the Filipino people, through their collective power, who will render the final judgment on the plunder committed by the Marcoses—past and present.
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KARAPATAN is an alliance of human rights organizations and programs, human rights desks and committees of people’s organizations, and individual advocates committed to the defense and promotion of people’s rights and civil liberties. It monitors and documents cases of human rights violations, assists and defends victims and conducts education, training and campaign. It was established in 1995.