Manila court defers auction of Imelda jewels; museum display proposed

A Manila court judge has deferred the issuance of a temporary restraining order (TRO) sought by former first lady Imelda Romualdez-Marcos to stop government plans to auction her multibillion-dollar array of jewelry seized as part of the Marcoses’ ill-gotten wealth in 1986.

In a summary hearing yesterday, Judge Marivic Balisi-Umali of the Manila City Regional Trial Court Branch 20 gave weight to the argument raised by a lawyer of the Bureau of Customs (BOC), saying the hearing was premature given that no date had been set yet on the government’s planned auction of several pieces of the jewelry recovered from Greek national Demetrious Roumeliotes.

BOC legal counsel Julito Doria also noted that Mrs. Marcos’ petition for a TRO was based on newspaper accounts.

The judge said Mrs. Marcos, who was represented by her lawyer Robert Sison, may have been a victim of a "kuryente" story, meaning they were given false or misleading information by newspaper reports saying the Roumeliotes jewelry was being sold by the government.

"This was a kuryente because there is no schedule for auction and no people from the auction houses have been around to examine (the pieces of jewelry)… There is nothing to enjoin, no room for a TRO," Umali said.

"The sale is done during the auction (but) there has been no scheduled sale," she said.

Umali ruled the TRO had been submitted for resolution and gave the respondent 15 days to file their answer to the petition for injunction.

The Roumeliotes jewelry — including diamond-studded tiaras, bracelets and expensive watches, according to reports — was seized by the government as he was about to leave the country through the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) in 1986.

Sison filed the petition after reading newspaper stories that the jewelry confiscated by the BOC district office at the Manila International Airport (MIA), now called NAIA, would be among the items auctioned in November this year or May next year.

The former first lady has long claimed the Roumeliotes jewelry belonged to her family and was stolen a few days after the Marcoses left Malacañang in Feb. 26, 1986 and fled to Hawaii.

New Tourist Attraction?

Meanwhile, amid expected delays in the government’s auction plan, the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) said yesterday they were open to having the expensive Marcos adornments displayed in a museum.

In the name of tourism, Sen. Jamby Madrigal and former board of censors chief Manoling Morato separately suggested placing the contested jewelry in a national gallery so that it could generate income for the government.

"We are open to that possibility. Why not?" said PCGG Commissioner Ricardo Abcede in a media forum yesterday at the Westin Philippine Plaza in Pasay City.

Abcede also said at the forum that an auction planned for this November in Geneva, Switzerland may not push through and could be delayed as "procedural delays" and an "injunction case" are blocking the sale.

He cited as a procedural delay the terms of reference that have to be sorted out first.

Madrigal said yesterday that instead of auctioning the Marcos jewelry, it should be kept in a museum to attract more local and foreign tourists.

For his part, Morato, former chairman of the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board, said in a letter to the editor sent to The STAR: "If I could give a suggestion, I’d prefer for the government to display all of Imelda’s fine jewels in the Metropolitan Museum for the world to see, properly insured with Lloyd’s of London." — Evelyn Macairan, Sandy Araneta