PCGG website seeks tips on missing Marcos artworks

MANILA, Philippines – The government is tapping “tipsters” and the Internet in its search for about 200 missing artworks of masters like Michaelangelo and Pablo Picasso that had reportedly been part of the vast art collection of the Marcos family.

Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) Commissioner Andrew de Castro said yesterday they hope to build a website featuring the missing paintings to draw greater public attention to government efforts to recover the works of art.

“We are looking for the paintings. By next week or next, next week we will launch a website on the missing paintings… These are of high value,” De Castro said.

“We have long been searching for these paintings so we thought of bringing the people into it. Let us inform the people,” he said.

Some of the paintings were on display at Malacañang during the Marcos regime but went missing after the Marcoses fled the country at the height of the People Power Revolution in 1986.

Other paintings were reportedly housed in the Marcos’ apartment in New York. “The only thing left were the frames and that was how we knew that the paintings have been taken,” he said.

De Castro also said they have already made arrangements with international art experts to alert the PCGG in case they come across the items.

When asked if the PCGG would buy back a painting from its present owner who might have bought it in good faith, De Castro answered “no.”

He said the PCGG would use all legal remedies available in the country where such artwork is found.

“There are different ways to treat the ‘good-faith buyers.’ For instance, if in one country, you buy it in good faith, you are protected and it might not be recovered. But in other countries, even if it was bought in good faith if it was stolen, you can still get it back,” he explained.

It is only after the recovery of the missing painting that the PCGG would decide if these would be auctioned off.

In 1991, the PCGG sold some of the Marcos paintings in its possession.