Missing Marcos millions still elusive

Missing Marcos millions still elusive

By Harvey Stockwin

HONG KONG (JP): The tenth anniversary of that magical moment
when the Filipino masses finally overthrew the conjugal
dictatorship of former Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos and
his wife Imelda is but six weeks away, but the melodrama over the
missing Marcos millions is entering what promises to be another
murky chapter.

Could it be that the Philippine government is finally going to
receive back some of the money which the Marcoses placed in Swiss
bank accounts? Is it possible that some of the many victims of
martial law excesses in the Philippines will now be compensated
for their suffering? In Hong Kong this week three claimants to
those millions are meeting together in what is billed as a
"mediation", aimed at deciding who has the rightful claim to the
Marcos assets long held at two Swiss banks -- the Swiss Bank
Corporation and Credit Suisse.

In the wake of the "People Power revolution" which overthrew
the Marcoses in February 1986, the Philippine government
requested that Swiss banks freeze the Marcos's ill-gotten gains.
In a precedent-setting gesture, the Swiss did just that. Further
restitution to the Philippines, or to other claimants, was
promised pending appropriate legal adjudication. Predictably the
money has remained frozen ever since during numerous lengthy
legal battles which have yet to reach a firm conclusion.

This mediation aims to end the legal logjam. "The mediation
will address a range of jurisdictional, procedural and
humanitarian issues which could otherwise remain in gridlock for
the indefinite future," the brief press handout announced, "If
successful, the assets blocked in Switzerland will be distributed
among the parties as agreed during the negotiations".

Pioneering research by a Pulitzer prize winning team from the
San Jose Mercury News in California had established well before
1986 the fact of the missing Marcos millions. Typically, after
the 1986 revolution Filipinos embellished the amount without
doing much additional research.

So while the Swiss froze hundreds of millions, the
conventional wisdom in Manila is that the Marcoses stole
billions. Around US$450 million is evidently being held by the
two Swiss banks holding the mediation this week. It is assumed
that this amount is what was held directly in accounts under the
Marcos name.

Much more, maybe billions of dollars, probably lies in
numbered accounts, or in accounts bearing other aliases, in
Switzerland, Hong Kong and other, less respectable financial
centers. It is said that Marcos was so secretive that Mrs. Marcos
was not told where and how all the loot was stashed. Given the
former President's well-deserved reputation as someone who held
his cards extremely close to his chest, the assertion is
believable.

This week's mediation is led and presided over by veteran
American diplomat Chester A. Crocker, a former assistant
secretary of state for African affairs, who infuriated a packed
specially-called press conference on Jan. 15 when he informed a
large press turnout that all parties had agreed to a "blackout
rule" on the negotiations and that he had nothing more to say.

Outside the hotel in which the press conference was held
Philippine demonstrators claiming to be victims of martial law
sang old anti-martial law songs to the accompaniment of guitars,
and performed an elaborate ballet of protest, before being driven
off by the police. Most of the three dozen or so demonstrators
were from the huge community of 120,000 Filipino domestic workers
in Hong Kong. They, and millions like them, have to seek work
all over the globe in large part because of the depredations
which the Marcoses visited upon the Philippine economy.

There are four parties involved in the mediation.
The first claimant is the Philippine government which regards
what Marcos stole as its lost property. The Manila government
has met a precondition set long ago by the Swiss, and had Mrs.
Marcos convicted on corruption charges. However she remains out
of prison on appeals which are winding a very dilatory way
through Philippine courts. In the meantime Mrs. Marcos has got
herself elected as a congresswoman in her home town of Leyte and
is seen as certain to claim parliamentary immunity should the
convictions be upheld.

The second claimants are legal representatives of Filipino
victims of martial law who brought a class action legal suit in
Honolulu and won nearly two billion dollars worth of damages from
the ever-generous U.S. courts. They do not represent all the
victims -- only those who had the connections, or the green
cards, to enable them to win a case in the United States. No such
case has been brought or won within the Philippines.

The third parties to the dispute are of course the two Swiss
banks, who probably would love the whole dispute to go away and
for the mediation to succeed. However, whether the Marcos
experience has persuaded Swiss banks never to expose themselves
to corrupt dictators in the future remains in doubt.

The fourth claimant is of course Mrs. Imelda Marcos. In the
best tradition of palabas (ostentatious show), she denounced the
mediation in Manila yesterday as a "conspiracy against the
Marcoses" and said she would refuse to take part. She failed to
mention that she had told her lawyers to attend the Hong Kong
meeting, no doubt in the hope that if Crocker made unanimity the
rule, she would be able to prevent it.

Had the Marcoses lived on their legal pay and expenses, the
possession of US$450 million would have been utterly impossible.
Mrs. Marcos has got around this problem by claiming that Marcos
discovered a lot of gold prior to becoming president.

The gold allegedly came from the treasure accrued and stored
by Japanese Gen. Tomiyuki Yamashita at the end of World War II.
In point of fact, Marcos was still seeking the Yamashita gold
when he was chased out of office in 1986.

Whether Chester Crocker will be able to conjure some harmony
out of all these discordant elements during the promised week-
long mediation remains to be seen. Five weeks would appear
necessary rather than the allotted five days. But Crocker's
experience in his other current job as chairman of the board of
the United States Institute of Peace may come in handy.