Marcoses asked to pay P203-B overdue estate tax

Considering the devastations wrought by recent typhoons in many parts of the country, an activist group has urged Marcos Jr. and his family to pay their P203-billion estate tax deficiency that fell due 25 long years ago.

If paid, the estate tax deficiency could be used as seed money to fund urgently needed social services and reconstruction, said the Campaign Against the Return of the Marcoses and Martial Law (CARMMA).

CARMMA called anew on the Bureau of Internal Revenue to issue a demand letter to the Marcoses to pay up, in compliance with the Supreme Court’s final judgment on the Marcos estate case issued in 1997. The ruling became executory in March 1999.

Wryly, CARMMA remarked that it’s probably “too much to expect of the money-grubbing Marcoses to do their civic duty and voluntarily pay what they owed the government over the past 20 years.”

“If anything,” added the activist group of martial law victims, civil libertarians and peace and freedom advocates, “the Marcoses have systematically been taking back their ill-gotten wealth since their Malacañang come-back” in July 2022. CARMMA referred to the dismissal by the Sandiganbayan, the country’s anti-graft court – under Marcos Jr.’s watch – of seven cases against the family’s estate.

The latest case dismissal, on Oct. 4, was based on the claim by Marcos Jr. and his mother, Imelda Romualdez-Marcos, 96, of “inordinate delay” in its prosecution.

In so deciding, the Sandiganbayan cited among other grounds, besides inordinate delay, that “enough trouble and prejudice” had been caused to mother and son when they “were made to defend themselves, secure services of paid counsel and spend for their bail.”

In other words: “Kaawa-awa naman sila…”

Moreover, the Sandiganbayan said that the Marcoses could no longer be afforded a fair trial, because “the witnesses may have already died and the documentary evidence may no longer be located after more than 30 years from the filing of the complaint.”

Wouldn’t this ground be invoked by the Marcoses as a precedent ruling to argue for the dismissal of the remaining 36 cases filed against them?

Altogether, 43 civil and forfeiture cases were filed at the Sandiganbayan, mainly by the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG), from 1986 to 1995, against the Marcoses and their associates.

The apparent leniency of the Sandiganbayan decision stands out in contrast to two news reports from abroad, published in the Business Mirror last Thursday.

In the first item, we are told about a Vietnamese court ruling that meted a death sentence – execution by lethal injection, no less – against property tycoon Truong My Lan, 68, the former chairwoman of Vanh Thin Phat Group.

In April she was convicted for embezzling $12.3 billion from the Saigon Commercial Bank. She was also found guilty of bribing government officials and violating bank lending rules. Lan is appealing the death sentence.

In a second trial in October, Lan was sentenced to life imprisonment for illegally transporting roughly $4.5 billion across international borders, laundering $17.5 billion in pilfered assets from the same bank and misappropriating $1.2 billion from investors via bond issuances.

To avoid the death penalty, prosecutors told Lan to repay $11 billion of the embezzled sum. Her lawyers are working on ways for her to raise the money, citing promised support from a group of overseas investors. Should she come up with the repayment, the jury could consider reducing her sentence.

Vietnam’s Communist Party-led government is showcasing Lan’s cases as the type of high-level corruption it wants to go after in its years-long anti-corruption crackdown, dubbed as the “blazing furnace” campaign. The party chief has vowed to “resolutely” pursue the crackdown that has led to the detention of scores of senior government officials and business executives.

Just recently (on Nov. 21), it applied disciplinary measures against well-known political figures. They included Vuong Dinh Hue, former chairperson of the Parliament, who was given an official warning for violating anti-corruption regulations. Hue’s case is the first time that one of Vietnam’s four top government officials has been publicly disciplined.

Hurrah for Vietnam!

Meantime in China, the newly-risen Asia-Pacific region superpower, the government has put its defense chief under investigation for corruption, the Financial Times reported. Admiral Dong Jun faces questioning “as part of a broader probe into graft” in the People’s Liberation Army, the report said, citing as sources unnamed “current and former US officials familiar with the situation.”

Dong was among military leaders from around the world who attended a gathering in Laos last week, where he reportedly snubbed a meeting with US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.  Sought for comment through a faxed request, Dong did not immediately reply.

Two of Dong’s predecessors also found themselves in trouble due to graft investigations, Bloomberg reported. In the summer of 2023, the news service noted, China’s preeminent leader Xi Jinping launched a sweeping purge of the military. The purge was partly focused on the Rocket Force, which manages the superpower’s expanding nuclear arsenal.

Noticeably, details of corruption investigations in China are sparse.

Over here, the ongoing campaign is not against corruption in high places. It is focused on seeking justice for the victims of the anti-illegal drug killings during the Duterte regime.

On Nov. 25, dozens of human rights defenders and advocates launched the Duterte Panagutin Campaign Network, aimed at exacting accountability from the former president for the drug-related killings. A statement of unity issued by the group says in part:

“We are one with the families and communities that have suffered from the extrajudicial killings and other crimes of Duterte. The pain of losing a loved one to state-sponsored violence is immeasurable. The climate of impunity, made worse by the curtailment of civil liberties and the repeated failures of domestic mechanisms to deliver justice, extends to this day.

“We thus stand with them in their demand for justice. Their grief is our grief; their struggle, our struggle.”