Unexplained wealth of the Marcos family

rdf:langString Unexplained wealth of the Marcos family

rdf:langString The Marcos family, a political family in the Philippines, owns various assets that Philippine courts have determined to have been acquired through ilicit means during the presidency of Ferdinand Marcos from 1965–1986. These assets are referred to using several terms, including "ill-gotten wealth" and "unexplained wealth," while some authors such as Philippine Senator Jovito Salonga and Belinda Aquino more bluntly refer to it as the "Marcos Plunder." Legally, the Philippine Supreme Court defines this "ill-gotten wealth" as the assets the Marcoses acquired beyond the amount legally declared by Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos in the president's statements of assets and liabilities—only about US$13,500.00 worth from his salary as president. The court also deems such wealth to have been forfeited in favor of the government or of the human rights victims of Marcos's authoritarian regime. Estimates of the amount the Marcoses reportedly acquired in the last few years of the Marcos administration range from US$5 billion to $13 billion. No exact figures can be determined for the amount acquired through the entire 21 years of the Marcos regime. But prominent Marcos-era economist Jesus Estanislao has suggested that the amount could go up to as high as US$30 billion. Among the sources of the Marcos wealth are alleged to be: diverted foreign economic aid, US Government military aid (including huge discretionary funds at Marcos disposal as a "reward" for sending some Filipino troops to Vietnam) and kickbacks from public works contracts over a two-decades-long rule. This wealth includes: real estate assets both within the Philippines and in several other countries, notably the United States; collections of jewelry and artwork; shares and other financial instruments; bank accounts, both in the Philippines and overseas, notably Switzerland, the United States, Singapore, and the British Virgin Islands; and in some instances, actual cash assets. Some of this wealth has been recovered as the result of various court cases, either as funds or properties returned to the Philippine government, or by being awarded as reparations to the victims of human rights abuses under Marcos's presidency. Some of it has also been recovered by the Philippine government through settlements and compromise deals, either with the Marcoses themselves or with cronies who said that certain properties had been entrusted to them by the Marcoses. Some of the recovery cases have been dismissed by the courts for reasons including improper case filing procedures and technical issues with documentary evidence. An unknown amount is not recoverable because the full extent of the Marcos wealth is unknown.