Imelda holds off human rights suit until after jueteng scandal

Timing is everything.

Because the potentially front-page news of her filing a case of human rights violations against the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) may just end up in the inside pages at this time, former First Lady Imelda Marcos is said to be holding off the move.

Sources from the Marcos camp said Mrs. Marcos was advised to defer in the meantime the filing of her complaint before the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) until the jueteng controversy cools off.

"News on the jueteng payola scam will only bury her filing of the complaint. That is why they are looking for the right timing so that the issue will be given good media coverage," a source said.

CHR officials, aware that Marcos planned to file her complaint this week, waited yesterday for her to show up but the day passed quietly.

CHR Chairwoman Aurora Navarette-Reciña told reporters that last Monday, a Marcos staffer informed her office that the former first lady would be coming – complete with a battery of lawyers – to file her complaint.

"I told the lady staffer that I won’t be available at that time because of the budget hearing in Congress. So I told her that they can come anytime this week. We are still awaiting their arrival," Reciña said.

That prompted Mrs. Marcos to reschedule her filing to yesterday – but she was a no show.

Whether people like it or not, Reciña said, they cannot turn away Mrs. Marcos because it is their job to accept and investigate complaints involving human rights violations from anyone – even from Abu Sayyaf bandits.

"We will entertain the complaints of Mrs. Marcos. But on the aspect of whether they will prosper or not is another thing. We will give the Marcoses’ complaints due process," Reciña said.

Recently the Sandiganbayan ruled that a $628-million Swiss bank account held in escrow at the Philippine National Bank, allegedly owned by the Marcoses, was government money because it doubted that the Marcoses’ combined salaries were enough to support their lavish lifestyle.

Marcos said they will contest the ruling even though they denied before the Sandiganbayan that they owned the Swiss account. She said they were denied "due process."

The Marcoses also question the legality of the law that created the PCGG, saying it automatically accused them of "stealing billions of dollars worth of properties" and "declared all their properties stolen without any trial," the source said.

A popular uprising ousted the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos in February 1986 and catapulted Corazon Aquino to the presidency. The Marcoses went into exile in Hawaii.

However, the Marcos source said, "The Marcoses did not go into exile in Hawaii in 1986. They were kidnapped. They are also contemplating to file kidnapping charges before the international court of justice."

They did not say who kidnapped them.

Earlier Imelda Marcos said she would file lawsuits against former presidents Aquino and Fidel Ramos for human rights violations before the United Nations and in the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands.

After fending off lawsuit after lawsuit from the government, Mrs. Marcos decided to go on the offensive because the government has been unable to prove in court that her family committed human rights violations and stole billions of pesos in government money. Mrs. Marcos accuses the government of persecuting her family since 1986.