In 2003, the Supreme Court ruled that Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos’ legitimate income from their combined salaries during their 20-year rule amounted to only P2.3 million ($304,372 at the time).
The amount was manifestly disproportionate to the Marcos couple’s $356 million discovered after the EDSA revolt in 1986 deposited in Credit Suisse in Zurich, Switzerland. The accounts were opened in 1968 under dummy foundations and entities, with Ferdinand and Imelda using the names William Saunders and Jane Ryan.
On the basis of that final ruling from the Philippines’ highest court, the Swiss Federal Supreme Court deemed the deposits ill-gotten and ordered the return to the Philippines of the deposits, which had grown to $658 million due to interest. Another $29 million (over P1.3 billion at the time) was remitted to the Philippines in 2014 after lengthy litigation.
Part of the money, initially held in escrow before being fully turned over to the Philippine government, was used as reparation for victims of human rights abuses during the Marcos dictatorship. The government has seized other assets of the Marcoses.
A king’s ransom in jewelry, seized when the Marcoses were flown by US troops to Hawaii, is now with the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas.
So how come no one has been sent to prison for the ill-gotten wealth? May ninakaw, pero walang magnanakaw?
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In November 2018, Imeldific was convicted by the Sandiganbayan of seven counts of graft in relation to the Swiss deposits. She was sentenced to a combined prison term of up to 77 years, but the anti-graft court allowed her to post P300,000 bail.
This year, in a decision dated June 10 but made public only in September, the First Division of the Supreme Court reversed the conviction and cleared Imeldific. Among the reasons cited was that the Swiss bank documents – the same ones used in the 2003 SC ruling – were not properly authenticated and therefore lacked probative value, and the prosecution witnesses lacked personal knowledge of the documents’ contents.
Ruben Carranza, who as commissioner of the Presidential Commission on Good Government was part of the operation to get back the Swiss deposits, is reminding the country of the case following the SC’s reversal of Imeldific’s conviction (and effectively of the SC’s own 2003 ruling).
The author of this new SC ruling is Associate Justice Rodil Zalameda, one of five SC members applying to replace Alexander Gesmundo who retires when he turns 70 on Nov. 6. Among the concurring SC justices, Jose Midas Marquez has also applied for the CJ post.
Even as the Judicial and Bar Council was interviewing Zalameda, rumors swirled that he was President Marcos’ choice. Palace press officer Claire Castro, treasure of the government, advised the marites crowd to just wait for any official announcement.
Carranza lamented this possible choice, and its implications not only for the efforts to recover ill-gotten wealth, but also for the much-touted anti-corruption campaign of the second Marcos administration.
“Imagine that, a President who lies about cases that were decided against him will now be the one appointing a chief justice who might be the same person who ruled on the innocence of Imelda Marcos,” Carranza said.
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Speaking to “Storycon” on One News last Tuesday, Carranza expressed fears that the latest SC ruling could be invoked by the Marcoses not only to win all the remaining cases filed against them related to their family’s fantabulous wealth, but also to get back what has already been forfeited or returned to the government.
Carranza, now a director of the Reparative Justice Program of the International Center for Transitional Justice, reminded the nation that BBM himself, while in exile in Hawaii, had called up a Credit Suisse liaison from a payphone to avoid having the conversation tapped.
In this verified phone call, BBM gave instructions to transfer the Swiss deposits. But the call had the opposite effect, prompting Swiss authorities to freeze the accounts.
Carranza bristled at BBM’s recent pronouncement before foreign correspondents in Manila, that a slew of dismissals (mostly during his presidency) by the Sandiganbayan of wealth cases showed there was no evidence proving that the Marcoses amassed ill-gotten assets.
The Swiss deposits constitute solid evidence, Carranza stressed. So do the jewelry seized from Imeldific along with upscale real estate properties in the US.
“Marcos Junior’s lying is in character,” Carranza said.
An order of the Bureau of Internal Revenue in 1991, which became final, executory and no longer appealable on March 9, 1999 following an SC ruling in June 1997, directed the Marcos estate to pay P23 billion in real estate taxes. The amount is estimated to have ballooned to over P203 billion with the accumulation of annual interest, penalties and surcharges.
BBM, the co-executor of the Marcos estate, said last August that he has been too busy with the demands of the presidency to attend to the estate tax.
Fortunately for BBM, tax issues are arcane to many Filipinos. Otherwise, his leading by example in ignoring a demand to pay a massive amount of real estate tax could trigger a tax boycott.
He has two more years to complete his family’s legal victories, and to keep all their wealth.
Carranza said the ombudsman should consider seeking a review by the SC en banc of the ruling of the first division reversing Imeldific’s conviction.
With BBM soon to pick the next chief justice, plus another to replace SC Justice Amy Lazaro-Javier who retires on Nov. 16, a reversal by the entire SC of a division ruling may become remote. There’s also the question of whether Ombudsman Jesus Crispin Remulla, BBM’s former justice secretary whose brother is the interior chief, may even consider questioning the ruling.
Still, in the light of possible consequences, Carranza doesn’t want to lose hope.