EDITORIAL - Long wait for compensation

Perhaps the significance is better appreciated by the famously efficient Swiss. Switzerland, according to reports, is waiting for the Philippines to release $200 million as compensation to at least 10,000 victims of human rights violations during the Marcos regime. The money will be sourced from funds deposited by the Marcoses in Swiss banks.

A month after the 1986 people power revolt, the Swiss government reached an emergency decision to freeze $535 million in Marcos deposits. As required in cases of international legal assistance, the Swiss waited for a final court ruling in the Philippines that the funds were ill-gotten. By the time the money was released by the Swiss and transferred to the National Treasury from the Philippine National Bank, the funds had grown to $685 million with interest.

It was the first time that Switzerland restituted to a foreign government ill-gotten wealth stashed away by a dictator in the Swiss banking system. The Swiss later also restituted $700 million deposited by military dictator Sani Abacha of Nigeria.

Actual receipt of compensation by Filipino human rights victims, however, still awaits congressional action. Payment of compensation requires a law. The House of Representatives passed its version last March 21. The Senate version, SB 2615, was filed in November 2010 but has not been approved.

In Laos on the sidelines of the 9th Asia-Europe Meeting, President Aquino assured his Swiss counterpart Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf that the compensation bill would be passed. SB 2615 is currently with the Senate committee on justice chaired by Francis Escudero, whose father, the late Sorsogon congressman Salvador Escudero III, served as agriculture minister under Ferdinand Marcos.

Swiss authorities are reportedly hoping that restitution of ill-gotten wealth and payment of compensation to human rights victims will discourage the emergence of corrupt and oppressive regimes. President Aquino, whose late father was the most prominent victim of the Marcos dictatorship, should call on his congressional allies to give priority to the passage of the compensation bill. Human rights victims of the Marcos regime have waited long enough.