TIMELINE: Recovering Marcos' ill-gotten wealth

MANILA, Philippines - The Philippines will celebrate the 29th anniversary of the People Power Revolution with the government coming from last year's victory in recovering the ill-gotten wealth of former Pres. Ferdinand Marcos.

In this same month last year, P1.3 billion from Marcos' Swiss accounts were remitted to Philippine treasury.

These were considered as the last Swiss deposits of the former dictator, according to Andres Bautista, chairman of the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG).

Marcos is to believed to have accumulated $5 billion to $10 billion of ill-gotten wealth during his two-decade regime. According to a study by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and the World Bank, Marcos siphoned off his illegal riches through six channels:

• outright takeover of large private enterprises
• creation of state-owned monopolies in vital sectors of the economy
• awarding government loans to private individuals acting as fronts for Marcos or his cronies
• direct raiding of the public treasury and government financial institutions kickbacks and commissions from firms working in the Philippines
• skimming off foreign aid and other forms of international
• assistance.

"The proceeds of corruption were laundered through the use of shell corporations, which invested the funds in real estate inside the United States, or by depositing the funds in various domestic and offshore banks under pseudonyms, in numbered accounts or accounts with code names," the UN and World Bank study said.

Pooling data from the said study and old reports of local and foreign media outfits, the timeline shows some of the recovery efforts of the Philippines and landmark events after the People Power Revolution restored the country's democracy: