Why did Marcos conceal his wealth?
The heirs of Ferdinand Marcos are laying claim to several of the country’s biggest businesses, which include nearly a third of the GMA broadcasting network, over half of taipan Lucio Tan’s conglomerate and valuable real estate in the Ortigas business district.They allege that the dictator was the silent partner in these enterprises. As executor of his father’s estate, Ilocos Norte Rep. Ferdinand Marcos Jr. now insists he has proof that their patriarch owned these assets.
The question immediately comes to mind is: Why did Marcos feel that he had to conceal his partnership with the likes of Gualberto Duavit, Tan and Jose Y. Campos?
Need we mention Roberto Benedicto of the sugar monopoly, Herminio Disini who arranged the multibillion-dollar white elephant called the Bataan nuclear power plant, Eduardo Cojuangco Jr. of the coconut monopoly, Imelda’s brother Benjamin “Kokoy” Romualdez who gobbled up Meralco and the rest of the Lopez business empire and other “cronies”?
For 14 years Marcos wielded absolute power. Throughout his one-man rule, the press was muzzled. The legislative and judicial branches of government functioned as veritable extensions of Malacañang. The Armed Forces and police did his bidding without question.
The only earthly power that could have reined him in, the United States, was perfectly willing to, as an American author put it, “waltz with the dictator” for as long as he could guarantee the US lease on its military bases in the Philippines. Yet even American sponsorship could not rescue Marcos from the 1986 People Power Revolt.
But throughout much of Marcos’s rule, what opposition there was were restricted to the hinterlands, Manila coffee shops, military stockades and the pulpit. Marcos reigned supreme. And yet he felt compelled to conceal his business interests.
As one of the finest legal minds this country has ever produced, he must have realized the illegitimacy of his commercial and financial dealings. He probably knew that if he publicly acknowledged ownership of these assets, he would be giving evidence of his own wrongdoing.
The Presidential Commission on Good Government—21 years after it was given the mission of recovering “ill-gotten” wealth—has failed to get back the bulk of the loot purportedly amassed by Marcos and his cronies. However, the PCGG’s failure does not automatically mean that the dictator accumulated his mind-boggling riches legally.
His heirs say that Marcos had other sources of income, that he was already wealthy from his law practice even before he entered politics, that he had found the legendary wartime gold hoard of Lt. Gen. Tomoyuki Yamashita.
Yet—as Sen. Benigno Aquino III has pointed out—in none of his statements of assets and liabilities as a government official did Marcos ever publicly disclose his treasure.
Why?
Secret deal
As mayor of Cagayan de Oro, Aquilino Pimentel Jr. was jailed thrice for opposing Marcos at a time when it was neither safe nor fashionable to do so.
As Senate minority leader, Pimentel has dared the PCGG to stop the dictator’s heirs from reclaiming suspected ill-gotten assets amid speculations that the government has secretly forged a compromise deal with the Marcoses.
Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita has, of course, denied the existence of a deal. However, recent reports tend to support speculations that the Marcoses and the government—through the PCGG—are trying to pull a fast one.
Pimentel articulated the outrage of many Filipinos over reports that the Marcoses have already regained control over assets sequestered by the PCGG. Among the assets that have reportedly been “returned” to the Marcoses are shares of stock or their money equivalent in PLDT; mansions and rest houses such as those in Paoay, Ilocos Norte; Canlubang, Laguna; and Tolosa, Leyte, and even bank deposits.
In calling for a Senate inquiry, Pimentel said the aggressiveness by which the Marcoses are claiming ownership of billions of pesos worth of assets, many of which had been sequestered by the PCGG, boosts suspicions about a secret deal between the dictator’s heirs and the government.
Pimentel said the PCGG’s inability—or reluctance—to gather evidence of the Marcoses’ ill-gotten wealth is reason enough for its abolition.
“If they cannot yet figure out who own these assets after 20 years, even if we give them forever, they will still not be able to find out who really own them,” Pimentel said.
“In the meantime, there are unscrupulous officials who are making money out of the continued sequestration of these assets,” he added.
