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

The human rights jury awarded the victims $1.2 billion in exemplary damages, then $766.4 million in compensatory damages a year after that, for a total of $1.964 billion. Two days after, another $7.3 million was awarded to twenty-one Filipinos in a separate lawsuit.

The US Supreme Court upheld the $1.2 billion judgment.

The Swiss Parliament passed a law (an amendment to a previous act) that removed the need for a final judgment of criminal conviction of the accused (such as the Marcoses ) in the case of criminally acquired assets which could now therefore be returned to claimants (such as the Philippine government) by Swiss court order.

The PCGG, through Chair Magtanggol Gunigundo, and the PNB, through trust officer Jose V. Ferro, entered into a so-called 'escrow agreement' in anticipation of a possible order by Zurich District Attorney Peter Cosandey to transfer the Marcos Swiss deposits to be held in escrow in the Philippines. This transfer was now deemed possible on account of the March 29, 1995 Swiss Parliament act.

The escrow agreement, however, appeared irregular in the view of former PCGG Chair Jovito R. Salonga in that there was no actual deposit of funds, stock or personal property. Without an escrow deposit in an escrow account to be held by the depositor in the PNB, there can be no escrow agreement to talk about, Salonga opined. In fact, the so-called escrow agreement stated in Section 1: "Certain funds (the Escrow Funds) will be delivered and deposited in accordance with an order by Examining Magistrate Peter Cosandey...into an account of the Escrow Agent." This made the agreement, at best, a pre-escrow agreement similar to a pre-incorporation agreement entered into in anticipation of a future delivery and deposit of escrow funds which did not exist in August 1995.

Salonga emphasized that the escrow was irregular because, supposedly made by the PCGG, the latter was not in control or possession of the Marcos Swiss deposits at the time of the Agreement as it still is not in control or possession of the said funds up to today. This is legally absurd, Salonga said: to make a claimant, not in control of the funds, the source of the escrow deposit.

In part because of the torture of Roger Roxas, $22 billion was awarded to his Golden Budha Corporation.

The Swiss Supreme Court promulgated a landmark decision that took into account the March 1995 Swiss Parliament act and the fact that new criminal cases had been filed against Imelda Marcos. The court held that there was no need for any criminal proceeding; that a civil or administrative proceeding would suffice, and the Marcos Swiss deposits which had been "criminally acquired" can be returned to the Philippines in deference to the final judgment of the Philippine court as to the ownership of these deposits.

The Swiss court also announced that the interest and reputation of Switzerland was at stake if it would become a haven for money launderers laundering money obtained by crime. Therefore, in the case of the Marcos deposits, because "the illegal source of the assets in this case cannot be doubted" the Swiss court ordered that the money be returned to the Philippines to be held in escrow account in the PNB to await the judgment of the Sandiganbayan in the forfeiture case.

As columnist Neal H Cruz accurately put it: "What the PCGG and the PNB should have done, after the receipt of the [Swiss court] landmark decision, was to make sure that: (1) there was a genuine escrow agreement with the funds which the Swiss Supreme Court made available to the Philippines on December 10, 1997; (2) between the Swiss government or its duly authorized representative, on the one hand, (not the PCGG) and the PNB, on the other, inasmuch as the PCGG, a claimant, could not possibly qualify as a depositor of the escrow funds it did not possess, much less control."

Why did this not happen? The reason, according to Salonga,was that the parties to the irregular escrow agreement were hoping that a previous (December 1993) compromise deal between them and the Marcoses - hatched in secrecy and born of false hopes - would be considered valid.

The Philippine Supreme Court held that the "compromise settlement" between the PCGG and the Marcoses was illegal and void. The court held that the stipulation to drop the pending criminal cases against the Marcoses was an encroachment on judicial power; that the PCGG had no authority to compromise with the Marcoses, the principals in the ill-gotten wealth cases; and that the PCGG had no competence under the Constitution to grant tax exemption to the Marcos family.

The Marcoses filed a motion for reconsideration with the Supreme Court.

The Philippine Supreme Court denied with finality the Marcoses' motion for reconsideration of the December 9, 1998 ruling against the PCGG compromise agreement.

Meanwhile, the new Estrada administration tried to forge a compromise settlement with the Marcoses on the Marcos Swiss deposits supposedly held in escrow in the PNB as the target. All sorts of excuses were invented but to no avail because of the Supreme Court's final decision.

In a seven-page pre-trial brief, the PCGG at long last asked the Sandiganbayan to confiscate the ill-gotten wealth of Bobby Ongpin, the estates of Marcos and Ver, and that of the operators of the Binondo Central Bank who "engaged in the buying of millions of US dollars and bringing the same out of the country for deposit in foreign banks, thereby obtaining millions of dollars for themselves and for Marcos to the grave damage and prejudice of the Filipino people." The PCGG asked the court to let the BCB operators pay Php51 billion in moral damages for defrauding the Filipino people.

Other defendants include Edna Camcam, Ver's mistress, and Vinnie James Yu of the Philippine Associated Smelting and Refining Corp. (Pasar) which entered into a joint venture with the HK-based Triad Asia Ltd where millions of dollars were remitted to the damage and prejudice of the government and the Filipino people.

Some $5 to $8 million exchanged hands daily at the BCB, with some $5 million salted away in private jets or regular commercial flights with military escorts, and where, on many occasions, gold bullion was part of the precious cargo.

In an earlier confession, Bobby Ongpin said that dollars unsold by the Binondo Central Bank were sold to PASAR which in turn sold the excess dollars to the Central Bank. He did not explain why the dollars took the roundabout route that presumably gave PASAR huge profits. Or was this in exchange for the acquisition (by whom?) of the gold and silver side-produced by the PASAR copper smelting plants?

In any case the Chinese Central Bankers were allowed a spread or profit of 20 centavos per dollar traded and Ongpin said that before BCB's cessation, the participants earned hundreds of millions of pesos in profits. However, he emphasized, he committed no illegal acts. He swears that his scheme added $400 million to the CB foreign exchange reserves and the Filipino people should all be grateful to him for it. For now, anyway, the PCGG does not think so.

Bobby Ongpin, as former minister of Trade and Industry and Chairman of the Board of Directors of National Development Company (NDC) and Vinnie James Yu, as former Assistant General Manager of NDC and Treasurer of the Philippine Associated Smelting and Refining Corporation (PASAR), taking advantage of their positions and in unlawful collaboration with Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos, entered into a joint venture known as Triad Asia Limited with Triad Holding Corporation, to which the government was obligated to contribute US$500,000 as equity, but Ongpin and Yu actually remitted to Triad Asia Limited, using NDC and PASAR resources, an aggregate of US$10,640,000.

Is Triad Asia Limited in anyway connected with the notorious Triads of Hong Kong?

Triads were originally created as secret societies and brotherhoods. The purpose of these societies was to overthrow the unpopular ruler. During the 18th and 19th centuries, there were many new secret Chinese societies founded, but they were not concerned as much in overthrowing the ruler as in terrorizing and robbing the citizens. During the first half of the 20th century, the Triads took root in Hong Kong. These were plain criminal organizations and after the political crackdown in 1956 the Triads became much less structured. The triads spread quickly throughout the Chinese community in Hong Kong. They soon controlled the streets by prostitution, gambling, etc. as they gained more power and made more connections, the Hong Kong Triads grew very strong and could now start with such things as extortion. A lot of people in the police force were also bribed; Chinese as well as English. As time went by new ways of making money appeared, mainly drug trafficking, selling copies of luxury goods and selling private software. The modern Hong Kong Triads just want to make money out of their criminal activities.

Today (as before), the main criminal activities are extortion, drug-handling, loan-sharking credit and card-fraud and video piracy.

And for now, in fact, activist investigators started looking at the origins and nature of Belle Resources Corporation which had been awarded the right to conduct electronic gambling (Bingo!) nationwide and the allegation that this was all BCB money returning home to grow.

Following the Supreme Court doctrine, the Sandiganbayan now also denied a motion for the government to enter into a partial compromise settlement of $150 million with human rights victims which, it was hoped by the Estrada administration, would pave the way for the bigger compromise settlement on the balance of the Marcos deposits. As expected, a motion for reconsideration was filed by the parties involved.

August 10, 1999

Senator Aquilino "Nene" Pimentel, Chairman of the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee, opened the probe today into the $13.2 billion "I. Arenetta" account and the Marcos gold hoard even as in faraway Switzerland another investigation was about to start - concerning the alleged conspiracy and money laundering activities of Swiss officials in connection with the secret Marcos cash and gold accounts.

The Sandiganbayan threw out with finality the motion for reconsideration on a proposed partial compromise settlement of Marcos moneys in favor of human rights victims.

At the same time, the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee discovered that what had been assumed to be true and indisputable, viz. the $590 million (now $602 million) held in escrow in the PNB - is false. The simple truth pointed out by Salonga now became clear: the PCGG, a claimant without any escrow deposit, could not and cannot legally enter into an escrow agreement with the PNB.

Realizing there was no way out, President Estrada also declared with alleged finality that "there is no, and there will not be, any out-of-court settlement with the Marcos family." The "ball" is now in the solo court of the Sandiganbayan which should finish and decide the forfeiture suit pending before it since 1991!!!!

Or are they waiting for a future forum of constitutional amendments - the only valid forum above settled Supreme Court doctrines? Is the "Concord" or the "Cha-cha" which was never in the mind of Estrada during the campaign for the presidency (in fact he was ostensibly against it) not an inspiration coming form the side of the Marcoses to make the necessary corrections of who or what agency can enter into compromise settlements with them, etc.? Is it any wonder the administration is insisting we believe their claim that their idea of constitution-amending is purely focused on "economic" provisions - ostensibly about allowing foreigners to own land but really to include provisions, first of all, on the most significant economic area in the country, viz. the Marcos loot??

October 27, 1999

Industrialist Enrique Zobel showed investigating senators Pimentel and Flavier of the Blue Ribbon Committee a copy of a US treasury deposit certificate worth $161 million which he said belonged to Marcos. Zobel estimated the Marcos wealth to be worth around $100 billion, including $35 billion worth of gold certificates which the late dictator had showed him in October 1988. The two senators had gone to Hawaii to depose Zobel as a third party who possessed "information, documents and other related papers and instruments" on the still-hidden assets of the late strongman.

On the "thick folder" containing gold deposit certificates in places all over the world amounting to more than $35 billion based on the prevailing market price of $400 per ounce, Zobel said: "I felt they were authentic. There was no question about that. I scanned through the certificates. I was openly interested in the number of ounces and the location, and the locations were all over the world."

One commentator present at this testimony remarked:"Enzo did his duty by the Filipino people the best way he knows how. That his blue eyes come with a Batangas accent and humor to match just about sums up the worth of this man's Filipinoness. The worth of his testimony is however a little more difficult to establish."

Where have all the moneys gone? Long time passing. Where have all the treasures gone? Long time ago.