World aghast at Imelda claim to gold hoard

World aghast at Imelda claim to gold hoard

By Martin Abbugao

MANILA (AFP): Flamboyant former Philippine first lady Imelda
Marcos claims her late husband, dictator Ferdinand Marcos, had
amassed 4,000 tons of gold, more than half the gold at Fort Knox.

The widow said in a newspaper interview published Tuesday that
the former president built up the hoard in the 1970s at a time
when the Central Bank of the Philippines had a reserve of only
650 tons.

She claimed Ferdinand Marcos accumulated 1,000 tons of gold
while a guerrilla fighting Japanese occupation forces in the
1940s and increased it to 4,000 tons by taking advantage of the
steep increase in international gold prices in the 1970s.

Marcos had claimed to have found the gold treasure amassed by
Japanese Imperial Army General Tomoyuki Yamashita during a
lightning conquest of Southeast Asia during World War II, but the
size has not been disclosed.

He used the money to build roads, bridges, irrigation systems
and schools in the Philippines during his 20-year rule, having
inherited empty coffers from his predecessor, Imelda Marcos said.
Her claims have elicited reactions of mostly disbelief.

Central Bank of the Philippines Gabriel Singson, a career
banker since 1955, said it was "unbelievable" for a person to own
4,000 tons of gold.

Asked whether the government should try to verify Marcos'
alleged international gold transactions, Singson said: "We will
just become the laughing stock of the world."

Andy Smith, an expert with Mitsui Bussan Commodities in
London, told AFP the figures ticked off by Imelda seemed "totally
unreal."

Such a volume is more than half of the gold kept by the
American Federal Reserve Bank in Fort Knox and is higher than the
reserves of the German central bank, Bundesbank, totaling only
3,700 tons, he said.

The Swiss National Bank has only 2,600 tons. Also, the 4,000
tons of gold is about the entire production of South Africa, one
of the largest gold producers, in 10 years, Smith added.
He said that at the current market rate, the gold would be worth
US$38 billion.

Congresswoman Imee Marcos, Imelda's eldest daughter, said in a
television interview Monday she and her siblings were surprised
at their mother's revelations.

"We love her dearly, but sometimes she goes wild and crazy and
it's very exciting to watch, but let's see," she said.

Marcos opponents and victims of torture under his martial law
regime said her disclosure was aimed at justifying the plunder of
the nation's coffers during his rule, ended by a popular uprising
in 1986.

The dictator died in exile in Hawaii in 1989.

"She has publicly announced, nay confessed, to the grand
larceny committed by and under the Marcos dictatorship," said
former solicitor general Francisco Chavez.

In remarks last week, Imelda Marcos said she would file legal
suits to recover her husband's assets, worth at least 500 billion
pesos ($12.8 million) in blue chip firms entrusted to cronies who
claimed them as their own.

Such statements also shook the corporate world -- among the
firms she mentioned included Philippine Long Distance Telephone
Co. (PLDT), beer-brewer San Miguel Corp. and utility firm Manila
Electric Co.