Sandigan orders PNB to transfer Marcos deposits to gov’t

The Sandiganbayan ordered the Philippine National Bank (PNB) yesterday to transfer the $684-million Swiss deposits of the Marcoses that were declared by the Supreme Court as government-owned last year.

The writ of execution issued to the PNB, where the money has been held in escrow since 1997, was penned by Justices Teresita Leonardo-de Castro, Francisco Villaruz Jr. and Roland Jurado.

"You are hereby ordered to enforce the decision of the SC and cause the immediate transfer to the Republic of the Philippines the Swiss deposits which were transferred to and are now deposited in escrow at the PNB," the three-page writ said.

The money, only $676 million in January 2003, ballooned to $684 million as of Nov. 28 last year, earning a total of $8 million interest in 2003, including accrued interests and cash balances, PNB’s first senior vice president Ma. Elena Sarmiento said.

The writ, signed by clerk of court Estela Teresita Rosete, granted the motion filed by Solicitor General Alfredo Benipayo last Nov. 24 for an immediate execution of the July 2003 SC ruling which became final in November last year. SC justices claimed the money was illegally acquired by the Marcoses.

The tribunal had also closed the door on the Marcoses for any more affirmative relief, and threw out their second motion for reconsideration — a prohibited pleading — after it ruled with finality in November 2003 that the money accumulated by the Marcoses during their 20-year reign was ill-gotten.

Lawyers from the Office of the Solicitor General, led by Benipayo, have been requesting the SC for an entry of judgment — which would seal off the case that has remained pending for so long — and for the high court to direct the Sandiganbayan to issue a writ of execution.

They claimed the money, which would amount to billions of pesos, once converted into the local currency would benefit small farmers through the agrarian reform program and human rights victims during martial law, and reduce the country’s huge budget deficit as well.

In July 2003, the SC ruled the money, which was originally $356 million in Swiss deposits, was government-owned following the Marcoses’ failure to justify where the funds came from since the declared legitimate income of the late President Ferdinand Marcos and his wife Imelda was way below the amount.

Records revealed the Marcos couple only earned $304,372 during their 20-year reign, from 1965 to 1986.

"It’s a defeat for the Marcoses," Ruben Carranza, commissioner of the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG), told Reuters.— With Rainier Allan Ronda