BELIEVE IT OR NOT: THE FACTS, THE BACKGROUND AND PROCESS OF THE GREATEST LOOT IN HISTORY

On this day a man named Jose Cruz-Cruzal was arrested when he arrived at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport from Manila. They found a plastic bag he was about to conceal in the small of his back. It contained documents that stated that Marcos wanted to borrow billions of dollars from banks through an American, Frank B. Higdon, living in Virginia. The collateral was "floors of gold" stored underneath a bank in Manila.

After the international reserves scandal died down, Marcos issued PD 1937, eliminating the ten-year limit on the amortization of losses at the Central Bank. Before this decree, the CB had to write off one-tenth of its losses every year. Now they could be amortized "over a period at a rate which shall be based on the adequacy of the Central Bank's profits." In other words, forever.

When Marcos signed this decree, the CB losses were fast approaching Php 100 billion or more than four times the amount known to be missing from the international reserves. Now one-tenth of these losses would no longer have to be written off annually. Incredibly, they were listed as assets!!

Sec.43 (d) of this PD read: "The Monetary Board may, whenever it deems it advisable, exclude from the computation of the annual profits and losses of any given fiscal year all or part of the extraordinary expenses incurred during the year." Only the CB knew what it considered "extraordinary" and could be excluded from public view and scrutiny. Could these be the expenditures incurred by Marcos and Imelda for the May 14,1984 Batasan elections? Could these be the source funds for the hidden wealth stashed abroad?

Indeed, the question must be asked - what items of expenditures have been eliminated from the CB 1984 and 1985 profit and loss statements that utilized this particular seemingly innocuous section?

"Election" day: eleven people from Langoni, Negros Occidental were picked up hours after the voting, marched through the village with their hands bound, brought to PC HQ where, according to eyewitness, the were beaten and kicked and nine of them taken to a nearby field where they were all shot dead while the fate of the other two arrested is still unknown. The bodies of the dead still bore marks of torture.

The American Committee for Human Rights sent a mission to the Philippines. Their report noted: "It was the overall impression of the mission that one-third to one-half of all individuals arrested by the military are subject to torture, as defined by the United Nations Declaration on Torture."

The TFDP (Task Force Detainees of the Philippines) documented in detailed records 5,531 cases of torture, 2,537 cases of summary execution, 783 cases of disappearances, and 92,607 arrests under martial law.

Former US Ambassador Stephen Bosworth testified that in a conversation with Marcos, the latter said: "I'm aware there is torture and everything happens, but that is part of the interrogation process and these people are communists."

Jose "Jobo" Fernandez, head of Far East Bank, is summoned by Marcos to the palace and given Laya's old job - Governor of the Central Bank.

The IMF said the Central Bank had overstated its reserves by $264 million in 1981, $823 million in 1982, and $1.2 billion in 1983. Gross reserves had fallen $1.4 billion between June and December 1983. This means the CB now had no usable reserves. It could no longer pay its foreign debt. Bobby Ongpin reported an estimated $2 billion had flown the country in 1984 and $1 billion the year before.

What was the role of the IMF resident representative who, since 1970, had been keeping regular office hours in the CB? The CB paid for the residential mansion of the IMF resident rep and furnished him with a car with uniformed driver. Was the IMF resident rep, who was regularly furnished papers and reports of personnel of departments and offices wittingly or unwittingly a party or accessory to the "falsification" of international reserves?

On this day, the Sandiganbayan sentenced two municipal treasury employees to prison terms of sixty-four and twenty-six years respectively for malversing a few hundred pesos.

According to income tax returns, the Marcoses had a net worth of US$7,000 when they became the First Couple in 1965. How many billion dollars were they worth when they had to flee abroad?

That is why the Guinness Book of Records named him the world's greatest thief based on what they could trace.

World media, in particular San Jose Mercury News, Far Eastern Economic Review, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, the Nation, aided no doubt by the opposition in exile intensified the expose of the "hidden billions" and the draining of the Philippines.

While Marcos battled the hidden wealth scandal, a gold deal was being offered in Israel. Oliver North was trying to find ways to fund the Contras of Nicaragua. The Israelis had 40 metric tons of gold for sale for $465 million, with a possible 20 more tons if the first deal went through. The commission would net $5 million for the Contras. Fabian Ver knew the Israelis, had befriended them when they used him to sign fake end-user certificates for arms shipments destined for Iran. When the buyers found out the seller was Ver, they approached him directly to cut out the Israeli middlemen.

An Interpol cable stated that three suspicious shipments - one of gold and two of silver -had been made by the Central Bank. Speculation was that the Marcos family was diverting the precious metals to Switzerland to put them in their personal accounts. A bill of lading from one shipment showed that 244 silver bars, weighing 8,202 kilograms, were received by First United Transport on October 11, 1985, and moved to the docks escorted by the Presidential Security Command (Ver).

Dr. Potenciano Baccay's body was found in the back of his own van with twenty stab wounds. His crime was to have revealed to the Pittsburgh Press the public state secret that Marcos had indeed had two kidney transplants. Two days after the murder Marcos was provoked to show how healthy he was by calling for a snap election to be held February 7, 1986 against Imelda's warning of the dangers of such a move: "You're not in the best of health…The people are angry…A campaign could turn treacherous."

Illegal use of aid funds as being the norm and not the exception is exemplified by the following: the Central Bank wired the Federal Reserve Bank in New York to pay $15 million to First Chicago International, for account of Lombard, for redemption of US dollar Treasury Notes. The Fed wired back on December 20 that there was only $6 million in the account. Then $45 million earmarked for USAID projects in the Philippines was released by the US part of which was used to redeem the Notes.

By year-end, Imelda's Metro Manila Commission had managed to accumulate debts of Php 1.99 billion (which included $100 million in foreign loans) in its ten years of existence. Imelda had accomplished nothing and left the people embittered and even more disillusioned.

The insurgents' ranks grew by twenty percent a year.

Meritorious officers in the armed forces experienced low moral due to Marcos' penchant for promoting friends over more deserving officers.

Sen. Edward Kennedy, citing numerous reports of corruption at the highest levels of the Philippine government, asked the US General Accounting Office to investigate economic and military assistance programs to that country. Report? $92.5 million of non-project ESF aid could not be accounted for and the team could not state that $227 million in ESF funds were not misused. For instance, the National Electrification Administration padded a $1.45 million disaster relief fund for the rehabilitation of typhoon-wrecked power lines. They had submitted false vouchers amounting to $108,441.00.

During this time, just before the Edsa uprising, there were twenty wire transfers totaling $94 million to three Swiss banks - Banque Hoffman, Societe de Banque Suisse, and Union de Banque Suisse; one Swiss company - Transammonia AG; five foreign banks in Zurich and Geneva; and the Commerzbank in Luxembourg.

Where did these monies come from? From the gold accounts abroad? The Central Bank has refused to answer this question. In fact all Central Bank bosses have attempted to bury the Central Bank losses along with the past by restructuring the old debt.

How much was actually stolen and written off under the Special Accounts? And how much gold, if any, did Marcos steal from the international reserves?

Is there any doubt that he looted the Central Bank? Well, then, where is the final tally of the loot?

When Jobo bills were issued they were meant to complement the operations of the Binondo Central Bank that had been organized by Marcos and Ongpin to secure dollars to shore up official reserves. Ongpin assured the big dollar traders that they would find attractive use for the Philippine pesos despite the deteriorating conditions of the country because the Jobo bills were simply too attractive, with incredibly high interest rates.

Absent money-laundering legislation it was not difficult for hot cash from all over to enter the Philippine financial system. Jobo's Far East Bank, Philamlife, and AIG meanwhile made a killing brokering the initial placement entry phases of these hot monies into the Philippine financial system.

The short-term nature of the Jobo bills made an ideal cover for the layering phase of the money laundering process. "Heavy soaping", i.e. maturation of bills, reinvestment, and transformation into other financial instruments like dollars TTs (services provided by Far East Bank) was gladly facilitated.

And all of this, naturally, was done at someone's expense - at the expense of Juan de la Cruz who must now bear on his shoulder the heavy cross or intertemporal burden of future taxes as the huge bankruptcy losses of the old CB is amortized into the economy flows.

In Fe's records of monies paid out during Marcos' last campaign, one unusually large item was authorized by "FL" (First Lady) and paid to Assemblyman Arturo Pacificador on this day. A few days later, two carloads of men drove into San Jose, the provincial capital of Antique. Evelio Javier, head of Aquino's campaign, was watching the votes being counted when the men opened fire and killed Evelio after he was still able to run through town but finally got cornered in a public toilet where he was gunned down in front of shocked townspeople. Pacificador was later convicted of the murder.

Marcos fled the Philippines leaving behind a foreign debt of $27 billion and a bureaucracy gone mad. "Cash advances" for the elections from the national treasury amounted to Php3.12 billion ($150 million). The Central Bank printed millions of peso bills, many with the same serial number. Sixty million pesos in newly printed bills were found in a vehicle owned by Imelda's brother Bejo in the Port Area of Manila, and another Php 100 million aboard the MV Legaspi also owned by Bejo Romualdez.

How massive and humungus a loot Marcos took can be deduced from the known losses he left behind.

The known losses he left at the Central Bank included $1.2 billion in missing reserves and $6 billion in the Special Accounts.

Imelda charged off most of her spending sprees to the PNB or Philippine National Bank which creatively wrote off her debts as "unresponded transfers".

Ver also used PNB funds to finance his "intelligence" operations.

The known losses at the PNB amounted to Php72.1 billion

At the DBP, the losses Marcos left behind totaled Php85 billion; at the Philguarantee, it was Php6.2 billion ; and at the NIDC or National Investment and Development Corporation (NDC) - the losses amounted to Php 2.8 billion.

These losses were primarily due to cronyism - giving loans to cronies that had little or no collateral, whose corporations were undercapitalized, whose loan proceeds were not used for the avowed purpose, and where the practice of corporate layering was common, i.e. using two or more companies with the same incorporators and officers, whereby one company which gives the loan owns the company which obtains the loan, or similar arrangements. The cronies enjoyed their closeness to Marcos. With him they formed a Grand Coalition. They participated in the exercise of dictatorship. But Marcos owned them. The wealth of the cronies belonged to him.

Because of the free rides taken by Imelda, Marcos and the cronies, the Philippine Airlines was in debt by $13.8 billion.

The conservative Grand Total for losses Marcos left behind (and therefore the kind of loot he grabbed and hid) amounted to $17.1 billion.

The Central Bank, the PNB, and other financial institutions badly need an audit. The special review (not regular audit because there seems not to have been any - there are no records anyway) did not uncover Imelda's spending - her name never appeared - and Ver's intelligence fund.

The review gave no hint of theft or missing money, only "downward adjustments" and "proposed adjustments" to "deficiencies" and "shortages of money".

A few hours after the Marcos party landed in Honolulu, their luggage arrived - 300 crates on board a C-141 cargo jet. It took twenty-five customs officers five hours to tag the bags and identify the contents. The process was videotaped because of all the money and jewelry found inside.

There were 278 crates of jewelry and art worth an estimated US$5 million. Twenty-two crates contained more than Php27.7 million in newly minted currency, mostly hundred-peso denominations worth approximately US$1,270,000.00 (It was illegal for anyone to depart the Philippines carrying more than Php500 in cash. )

There were other certificates of deposit from Philippine banks worth about US$1 million, five handguns, 154 videotapes, seventeen cassette tapes, and 2,068 pages of documents - all of which were impounded by Customs. The Marcos party was allowed to keep only US$300,000.00 in gold and $150,000.00 in bearer bonds that they brought in with their personal luggage because they declared them and broke no US customs laws.

There were 24 one-kilo gold bars fitted into a $17,000 hand-tooled Gucci briefcase with a solid gold buckle and a plaque on it that read, "To Ferdinand Marcos, from Imelda, on the Occasion of our 24th Wedding Anniversary."

When Marcos departed the Philippines, the losses in the three Central Bank accounts surpassed Php 122 billion (more than $6 billion). The big bulk of losses was attributed to the RIR account mainly due to two items: forward cover and swap contracts. Forward cover referred to foreign exchange provided by the CB at a fixed exchange rate to importers of essential commodities. Swap contracts referred to CB's receiving foreign exchange from banks in exchange for pesos at the prevailing rate with a promise to deliver the foreign exchange back to them at an agreed future date.

There was no mention of losses due to CB transactions in gold or foreign exchange.

On this day, Jim Burke, security expert from the US Embassy, was tapping on the wooden paneling in Imelda's abandoned Malacanang bedroom when he heard a hollow sound. It was the walk-in vault. Inside were thirty-five suitcases secured with locks and tape. They contained a treasure trove of documents about Swiss bank accounts, New York real estate, foundations in Vaduz, and some notepaper on which Marcos had practiced his William Saunders signature. They also contained jewelry valued at some US$10.5 million.

Did Marcos steal any gold from the CB? The CB always refused to comment. Why?

Today the LA Times reported that 6.325 metric tons of gold was unaccounted for in the Central Bank. Between 1978, the year Marcos ordered all gold producers to sell only to the CB, and end 1984, the Bureau of Mines reported that 124,234 pounds of gold were refined.

But the CB reported receiving only 110,319 pounds during this same period. That left a difference of 13,915 pounds (6.325 metric tons).

Jokingly referring to themselves as the Office of National Revenge, a vigilante team led by Charlie Avila and Linggoy Alcuaz received a tip in the morning that Marcos' daughter Imee had kept a private office in the suburb of Mandaluyong at 82 Edsa. They obtained a search warrant, then rushed to Camp Crame to pick up some soldiers. After devising a plan, they boarded four cars and drove to the premises, arriving around midnight. The soldiers scaled a fence and sealed off the area. Avila, Alcuaz, and their men moved in and found documents in cardboard boxes, desks, and filing cabinets. Gunfire could be heard outside but it didn't deter the search. The documents revealed the names of offshore companies and overseas investments of Marcos and his cronies - a late link in the paper trail that had been started abroad by the teams of Avila, Steve Psinakis, Sonny Alvarez, Raul Daza, Boni Gillego, and Raul Manglapus.

A Greek-American, Demetrios Roumeliotes, was stopped at the Manila International Airport before he could leave with eight large envelopes stuffed with jewelry that he admitted belonged to Imelda - valued at US$4.7 million.

Ernie Maceda, Minister of Natural Resources, revealed today that some 7 to 14 tons of Philippine gold are sold to the Binondo Central Bank annually and then smuggled to Sabah, Malaysia - this gold being part of some 20 tons produced by 200,000 panners all over the country. Maceda's query was whether part of the gold they produced was siphoned to the "invisible gold hoard of Ms. Imelda R. Marcos."

"We deliver to the Central Bank," the miners said. "If it happened (the siphoning), it happened in the Central Bank."

The Archdiocese of San Francisco in California announced that they had uncovered a gold deal involving 5,000 tons of gold bullion allegedly connected to the government of deposed president Marcos.

Michael de Guzman flew into Honolulu and talked to Irwin Ver who brought him to Marcos, Imelda and Bongbong. Calls were made to Zurich - to Ernst Scheller of Credit Suisse. Marcos prepared two letters of authority. Mike was their last hope to withdraw the moneys from the Swiss banks. Marcos had tried to on March 21 but was prevented because of the freeze order of the Swiss authorities. So on March 24th Mike de Guzman tried his luck. No luck. He tried it again May 7th. Still the banks refused because of the freeze order. Mike knew it was time to go back home - to the new Philippine government. He offered to help them get the Marcos deposits in return for a fee. Supporting Mike was Ibrahim Dagher, a Lebanese businessman. They had identified one account for $213 million and eleven foundations that held a total of $4.5 billion in deposits in nine different banks with an additional $3 billion in precious metals and securities on deposit - or a tentative total of $7.5 billion. Operation Big Bird had commenced with Mike de Guzman, Col. Joe Almonte and Charlie Avila operating.

In the end, however, Big Bird would not - could not - fly because the government had strong doubts about the integrity of de Guzman, understandably, despite the guarantees built in to the operation to prevent any treachery.

Julie Amargo, having obtained a duplicate copy of the KLM cargo airway bill of 9 September 1983 asked the PCGG to investigate and pinpoint the persons behind the shipment.

In response the CB published, 2 months later, an article about "locations swaps" done to "beef up liquidity at a time when the CB was having difficulty meeting its foreign exchange payments."

The article was an exercise in obfuscation. It spoke of a total of 30 shipments for location swaps between 1981 December 21 and 1986 July 30 wherein a total of 6,081 bars were shipped out. Of course, the majority of the shipments, 27/30, occurred during the Marcos regime.

But the article was not clear on how much were the actual sales aside from the September 9, 1983 shipment. And the press, not the CB, reported the shipment.

To add to the confusion, the CB, when asked, admitted there were other gold shipments during the Marcos regime in addition to the location swaps but CB could not provide further information.

An Australian broker in Sydney said that T.C.B. Andrew Tan had offered to sell 2,000 tons of gold just before Marcos' downfall. Tan had told the broker the gold was part of the spoils of war taken by the Japanese in WWII. The gold talks continued.

A U.S. judge ordered Customs to release Marcos' money, jewelry, and belongings. Then a timely government appeal prevented the implementation of the order. The Marcoses were being charged by the Attorney General in New York of violations of the RICO (Racketeering Influenced Corrupt Organizations) statue. The Philippine government followed suit by filing several civil cases in the U.S. Subpoenas began to arrive. Ver decided to leave, flying out of the country on a fake passport. And quietly Marcos put out the word. Find another safe haven. He wasn't welcome anywhere unfortunately. There was nowhere to go. He became a target for con men who made a lot of promises and asked for a lot of money.

Marcos admitted to lawyers that four Philippine government agencies - National Intelligence Security Authority (NISA), Intelligence Section of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (ISAFP), and the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) targeted oppositionists in exile and other anti-Marcos organizations for intelligence and counter-intelligence operations through military attaches in the Philippine embassy and their consulates.

Also, using the Freedom of Information Act, lawyers obtained 400 pages of documents from US intelligence agencies related to US-Philippine intelligence dealings. They showed the CIA, FBI, and US government officials had knowledge of Ver's intelligence activities in the US and extended him full cooperation.

The global freeze on the Marcos loot was not totally effective. P.A.L.Vine who managed Marcos' two trust accounts at Standard Chartered Hong Kong Trustee LTD. Received instructions from Marcos and remitted $708,000 to the law firm of Anderson, Hibey, Manheim and Blair, Marcos Attorneys' in Washington DC. How much more Marcos was able to move after the freeze may never be known.

An NBI informant posing as a buyer saw ninety 75-kilogram gold bars in an apartment building in Quezon City owned by Jonathan de la Cruz, an aide of Bongbong Marcos. That's about 6.76 metric tons or almost the same amount of gold missing and written of in the L.A. Times March 16th issue.

And here is a longer list of questions:

• In 1973 reserves dropped from 1,857,000 ounces (52.75 metric tons) to 1,057,000 ounces. The CB claimed 800,000 ounces were sold. Assuming an annual production of 30 metric tons, what about the gold produced that year?

• From 1974-1977, gold reserves stayed at exactly the same figure of 1,056,000 ounces. Again, what about the four years of production totaling approximately 120 metric tons?
• Gold reserves began another steady annual rise in 1978. From then until 1980 they gradually increased to 1,900,000 ounces, or an average of about 8 metric tons a year. What about the other 22 metric tons annually totaling 66 tons?
• In 1981, reserves took a dip, to 1,650,000 ounces, a drop of 7.1 metric tons, which was sold. But another 30 metric tons should have been produced.
• Reserves rose by 6.1 metric tons in 1982, to 1,866,000 ounces. That left 23.9 metric tons unaccounted for.
• In 1983 they dropped to 289,000 ounces, a decrease of 44.8 metric tons from the year before, which was sold. What about the 30 metric tons produced?
• In 1984 they rose to 786,000 ounces, an increase of 14.1 metric tons. That left 15.9 metric tons unaccounted for.
• In 1985 they rose to 1,478,000 ounces, an increase of 19.7 metric tons. That left 10,3 metric tons unaccounted for.

Marcos departed in February 1986.

Is it true that Marcos propagated the Yamashita myth to hide the fact that he looted the Central Bank, that its gold bars were melted down and recast in odd-size bars to make them look old (how does gold look old, anyway?).

Marcos claimed that he "received the surrender of Gen. Yamashita" after a battle with his guerrilla outfit. History has recorded that Yamashita surrendered to Lt. Co. Aubrey Smith Kenworthy and that there was no battle. Yamashita's peaceful surrender had been arranged at least two weeks before the event.

In one entry in Marcos' diary he noted, "I often wonder what I will be remembered for in history. Scholar? Military hero…?" In a supreme irony, he did achieve what he so vainly sought - lasting fame - but not in the way he envisioned:

• The largest human rights case in history - 10,000 victims.
• Guinness Book of Records - the world's greatest thief.
• The largest monetary award in history - $22 billion.

Questioned by Philippine and US lawyers about his hidden wealth, Marcos took the Fifth Amendment 197 times. Imelda followed suit - 200 times.