‘Return Laguna mansion to us’

Ilocos Norte Gov. Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. asked the Sandiganbayan yesterday to order the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) to return to them a mansion in Canlubang, Cabuyao, Laguna which he claimed the government illegally took in 1987.

In a five-page urgent motion, Bongbong, namesake and first born of the late former President Ferdinand Mar—cos, said the Canlubang mansion was never part of any ill-gotten wealth case which the PCGG has filed against the Marcoses.

The mansion, he said, is covered by Transfer Certificate of Title T-85206 issued by Laguna’s register of deeds and registered in Cabuyao.

"However, at no time was the subject property covered by the instant case since it was never included in the original and amended complaints by the government as one of those subject to reconveyance or reversion," Bongbong said.

He complained that the government has repeatedly barred their representatives from entering the property even it has no proper authorization to seize it.

For more than a decade now, Bongbong said he and his sisters Ilocos Norte Rep. Imee Marcos and Irene Marcos-Araneta have not been able to exercise their legal rights as owners of the Canlubang mansion.

The mansion, he added, has never been sequestered or frozen by the PCGG, citing its exclusion in the general index of properties and assets sequestered by the government from March 1986 to August 1998 which the PCGG submitted to the Sandiganbayan’s fourth division chaired by Associate Justice Narciso Nario.

Bongbong said that even when the government filed Civil Case 0002 against the Marcoses on July 15, 1987, the mansion was not included in the list of the Marcoses’ assets that the government found bases to confiscate.

He noted that the anti-graft court’s fourth division, in a resolution dated Sept. 2, 1998, junked the PCGG’s motion to amend Civil Case 0002 to include the Canlubang mansion.

The PCGG, he said, did not appeal the ruling.