MALAYA
‘It is not the expense. It is the fact that the PCGG cannot produce the goods to prove the guilt of Marcos and his family in the other cases.’
Andres Bautista, chairman of the Presidential Commission on Good Government, declared that pursuing half of the $10 billion worth of alleged stolen assets of Ferdinand Marcos and his family should be left to other agencies, notably the Department of Justice, because litigation is expensive.
This is the first time that anybody ever heard of a government agency abandoning its duty simply because trying to perform it involves so much money.
Important in this case is the fact that the complainant against the Marcoses is the Republic of the Philippines. Giving up the case presumably to save on taxpayers’ money is complete surrender.
The abandonment becomes necessary because after 30 years the PCGG has not produced evidence against how Marcos got $5 billion of the $10 billion claimed to have been stolen by sheer exercise or abuse of dictatorial powers.
Even more stupid is the statement of Bautista that some members of the Marcos family are now elected politicians. He admits that the PCGG is scared of political clout. But that is not remotely related to evidence that the PCGG has not produced after 30 years of unrelenting search.
The PCGG should leave the decision to the Sandiganbayan if it could file information. But since it obviously does not have the goods on how the other $5 billion was acquired, Bautista now says the PCGG should no longer pursue the case.
Bautista and the PCGG do not have the humility of admitting they have practically lost the case or cases because there is no evidence that can stand up in the courts.
One case I have some familiarity with is the sequestered seaside home of the late Potenciano Ilusorio. Some members of the Ilusorio family have consistently claimed that Marcos wanted it for his son, now Sen. Ferdinand Bongbong Marcos Jr., who was suffering from asthma.
The Ilusorios were not paid for the home. It now sits on a grassy lot, completely uncared for either by the Marcos family, particularly Bongbong, or the PCGG. We have no information on whether the title has been transferred to any of the Marcoses.
The point is that the property was sequestered on mere suspicion. It should be ordered returned to the Ilusorios by the PCGG. By declaring that it would no longer pursue the other cases, Bautista practically ceded the property to the Marcoses when it should be returned to the rightful owners, the heirs of Potenciano Ilusorio.
If it does not have evidence against the Marcoses, there could be no evidence against his cronies who, at one time, included Ilusorio.
But before doing so, the PCGG should render an accounting of what it did to the sequestered companies in the last 30 years. It brazenly violated the provision of Executive Order No. 1 of President Corazon Aquino that fiscal agents and nominees of government have to sit in the boards of sequestered firms if not actually operate them to prevent the dissipation by encumbrance, sale or whatever mode there is under the law.
The Commission on Audit or some private auditors should examine the state of the finances of these companies to determine whether the PCGG performed its duty of preventing the dissipation of the assets.
I am reasonably certain there has been massive dissipation and destruction. One glaring example is the Philippine Overseas Telecommunications Corp., founded by Ilusorio and largely financed by the National Development Co.
The P50 million that NDC invested in POTC was recovered more than 10 times. How does PCGG prove that the company was set up with ill-gotten money when the truth is the government benefited immensely from it?
Yet it was sequestered and left to rot. It could have been the first telecommunications company that might well have introduced cellular phones. But it could not get away from the antiquated analogue system because government presence in the company, through sequestration, scared the stockholders.
Therefore, the PCGG should be held liable for violating its mandate. The good government body and its present chairman, Bautista, and the previous heads are now freed from being held responsible by the stupid decision of not pursuing the cases against the Marcoses because doing so is expensive.
That is a shallow way of avoiding responsibility. Where it cannot produce the evidence, the PCGG should say so. It cannot exculpate itself from liability by saying litigation is expensive. It cannot be as expensive as the $5 billion which Bautista claims should be recoverable from the Marcoses because the assets were ill-gotten.
There is no question that President Cory was well-intentioned in her attempts to recover ill-gotten wealth from Marcos and his cronies. The mistake was the creation of the PCGG, which was chaired by Marcos haters. Being haters, they should not have found it difficult to prove the guilt of Marcos and his friends. In fact, some recoveries were made after many years. But there is no evidence on the other cases against Marcos.
The other mistake was the provision that part of the funding for the Agrarian Reform Program is to come from the recovered stolen wealth. That is counting the chicks before the eggs are hatched.
Now comes Bautista saying the PCGG is giving up because the search for evidence or defending it in court is expensive.
Who cares about the huge expense? It cannot be bigger than what the PCGG has consistently claimed it will recover.
They always say that time heals all wounds. While there will always be Marcos haters for life, we should start wondering how Bongbong, Marcos’ son, was elected senator if there is glaring proof that his father was a full-blown thief.
His mother was earlier elected congresswoman from Leyte.
By abandoning prosecution of the Marcoses, Bautista is practically sharing the sentiments of those who elected Bongbong to the Senate. Bautista’s excuse is stupid. No lawyer should ever abandon a case because prosecution is expensive.
Again, it is not the expense. It is the fact that the PCGG cannot produce the goods to prove the guilt of Marcos and his family in the other cases.
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email: amadomacasaet@yahoo.com
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