P10-B trust fund proposed for Marcos rights victims

The Senate has formally asked the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) to place the P10-billion share of human rights victims from the recovered Marcos wealth in a trust fund.

In a letter to Budget Secretary Romulo Neri dated Jan. 25, Sen. Joker Arroyo requested that the share of human rights victims from the recovered Marcos wealth be transferred from the special fund where it is being held right now to a trust fund to keep the money intact.

Arroyo, chairman of the Senate committee on justice and human rights, also argued that the amount should be P10 billion and not P8 billion as earlier claimed by Malacañang.

He pointed out that the Senate and the House of Representatives, in filing separate bills calling for the compensation of human rights victims during the Marcos regime, have both indicated that the actual amount should be P10 billion, which is a percentage of the P35-billion recovered initially from the Marcos estate.

During the Senate hearing on the DBM budget earlier this week, senators expressed concern that the share of the human rights victims may have already been used up.

Arroyo said that Malacañang had not been forthright in explaining the status of the P35 billion recovered from the Marcos estate so it would be difficult to accept the claims of the budget department about the fund.

During the hearing, Neri was again pressed for details on how the Marcos fund had been spent.

In the first hearing on the 2006 national budget last year, Neri said the P35 billion was almost down to zero after subtracting the P8 billion for the human rights victims and the money used for the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP).

This time, Neri reported that only P5 billion was left of the P35 billion and that this would still be allotted for CARP. — Marvin Sy