Former Imelda aide to face raps in NY for paintings

NEW YORK – A former aide to former first lady Imelda Marcos is expected to be charged on Tuesday in New York with crimes relating to paintings that disappeared after the fall of the Marcos government, according to a person familiar with the investigation.

Vilma Bautista, a New York resident and one-time secretary to Imelda Marcos, will be charged by the Manhattan District Attorney in connection with four paintings in her possession, including some by Impressionist artists, said another source.

Some of the paintings hung in a Manhattan town house used by Imelda Marcos when her husband, the late President Ferdinand Marcos, was in power, one person said.

The probe comes a quarter century after the Philippine dictator was forced out by an uprising and fled the country in 1986.

Bautista, who is in her 70s, could not immediately be reached for comment. Joan Vollero, a spokeswoman for Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr., declined comment.

Imelda Marcos, known for her extravagant lifestyle and thousands of shoes, is not expected to face charges in the case.

Ferdinand Marcos died in 1989.

The Philippine government filed corruption charges against the strongman and his wife in 1987, seeking tens of billions of dollars in damages for plundering the nation’s wealth, including illegal expensive works of art, clothes and jewelry.

Sources said that the paintings, individually valued, runs to the tens of millions of dollars.

One of the three paintings, it was learned, was by French Impressionist painter Claude Monet.

“The office of the New York District Attorney is conducting an investigation on the matter,” a source told The STAR.

US authorities are expected to contact the Philippine government officially once the assets are confirmed to be part of the Marcos ill-gotten wealth.

Meanwhile, Sen. Teofisto Guingona III has filed yesterday another bill proposing compensation for martial law victims amid calls for the Senate to speed up the passage of the measure.

Guingona filed Senate Bill No. 3330, which will likely be consolidated with the bill earlier filed by Sen. Sergio Osmena III that has been pending in the committee level since 2010.

Osmena’s bill (SB 2615) has been referred to the Senate committee on justice and human rights, and on finance, which have conducted joint committee hearings last Dec. 6, 2010. It has been pending before the Technical Working Group (TWG).

This developed as the Samahan ng mga ex-detainees Laban sa Detension at Aresto (SELDA) reiterated last week their to Congress to speed up the passage of the measure, which is long overdue.- Rainier Allan Ronda, Christina Mendez