Senators OK with PCGG wrapping up its mission

MANILA, Philippines - Senators welcomed on Wednesday the declaration of Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) that it would wrap up its mission to recover the alleged  ill-gotten wealth of the Marcos family.

Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile, Senators Joker Arroyo and Chiz Escudero called for the need to account for all the assets recovered by the PCGG over close to three decades.

Enrile described the decision of PCGG Chairman Andres Bautista as a “wise move”.   

“The PCCG should have long been dissolved,” the Senate leader said.

Enrile and Escudero also wanted to scrutinize the past PCGG administrators to determine where the sequestered assets went during the past years. 

For Arroyo, former executive secretary during the term of the late President Corazon Aquino, the current position of the PCGG “makes practical sense."

Arroyo said the recovery of ill-gotten wealth, mandated by Executive Orders 1 and 2, was a valid campaign and advocacy.

"However, the mandate of the PCGG was time-limited by the very nature of the campaign," Arroyo said, referring to the executive orders by the ex-President Cory Aquino that set the law that created the body.

Arroyo also noted the fact that Congress has extended the life of PCGG quite a number of times. “It is problematic whether the government can gather additional evidence after 26 years,” he said. 

Arroyo added that the main task of the PCGG – to  gather evidence and build up the cases – has been winnowed by time.  Right now, Arroyo said the Department of Justice (DOJ) should take over the mandate of going after  Marcos cronies.

"Now the thrust of the work has become the humdrum of legal work essentially dealing with litigation. It is about time that the work is devolved to the Department of Justice," Arroyo said.

Aside from turning over all pending cases against the Marcoses and their cronies to the DOJ, Escudero said the commission should also account for all the assets that it had recovered and confiscated since its creation and turn it over to the Department of Finance.

Escudero said the PCGG should also make public all the compromise deals it has made in the past, identifying how much the state gained or lost.

"The last thing we want to discover is a tale of the fabled loot being looted twice over," he said. 

Escudero is the chairman of the Senate Committee on Justice and Human Rights. He is also one of the sponsors of the bill seeking compensation for victims of human rights abuses under the Marcos regime. 

"It is disappointing that the PCGG was now giving up the search for billions of pesos suspected to have been stolen by the late strongman Ferdinand Marcos, his cronies, and his family," Escudero said.   

"That it was difficult to recover the Marcos loot should not be an excuse if there was indeed a cause of action."

"Everybody agrees that the hunt and recovery was not going to be a walk in the park. But it’s disappointing that they are throwing in the towel now and saying that they can't prove the case against the Marcoses anymore,” he added.  

Bautista cited several reasons for ending its search for an estimated $10 billion in ill-gotten wealth of the Marcos family, including the return to power of some members of the Marcos family, and the government's belt-tightening measures which now made the pursuit costly and prohibitive.

Bautista said he already gave his recommendations to President Benigno Aquino III to wind down its operations and transfer its work to the Department of Justice.

Bautista, who took over the commission two years ago, had admitted that the "long-term chronic mishandling of the PCGG that led to an unmanageable paper trail and evidence went missing that led to bitter losses in litigation."