‘Settlement deal on Marcos ill-gotten assets final’

MANILA, Philippines — The announced distribution of some $10 million to martial law victims will push through as the settlement agreement on how to divide some ill-gotten assets recovered from an aide of former first lady and Ilocos Norte Rep. Imelda Marcos is already final, according to the lawyer of the victims.

“The Office of the President, the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) and the New York federal judge approved the settlement. The settlement is final,” American human rights lawyer Robert Swift told The STAR in an e-mail yesterday.

Swift was reacting to the statement of PCGG acting chairman Reynold Munsayac, who on Sunday said the settlement may not be implemented as they failed to secure approval of the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG).

The agreement would divide some $20 million worth of assets seized from former Marcos aide Vilma Bautista, who was arrested and later prosecuted over the theft and sale of a Claude Monet painting that she took from the Philippine mission after the fall of the dictatorship.

The artwork, along with other paintings recovered from Bautista, was later identified as among the ill-gotten assets of the Marcoses.

In the agreement, some $13.75 million will be provided to human rights victims that won the $2-billion class action suit in Hawaii in 1995.

The Philippine government was set to receive $4 million, while a third party, the Golden Buddha Corp. and the estate of Roger Roxas that allegedly discovered the Yamashita treasure, would also get a portion of the proceeds from the sale of some of the paintings.

Last week, Swift announced that he would start in May the distribution of $1,500 each to some 6,600 members of the class action, amounting to almost $10 million.

He said they were able to secure the approval of California district court judge Manuel Real, who handled the Hawaii case that originally involved over 9,500 claimants.

On Sunday, however, Munsayac said they failed to secure OSG approval, which he said is among the conditions set when New York district court judge Katherine Polk Failla approved it in January.

“The proposed settlement agreement was approved by Judge Failla subject to certain conditions like the presentation of the Republic of the Philippines of authority to enter into the same,” Munsayac said.

“We just submitted a letter to Judge Failla manifesting that the required authority from the Office of the Solicitor General was not secured, thus, the implementation of the settlement agreement cannot proceed. In fact, (PCGG) commissioner Rey Bulay is in New York right now to inform the court of this development,” he added.

The PCGG chief said the Philippine government will instead pursue its claim to all of the recovered properties of the Marcoses in the cases pending before the Sandiganbayan.

Waiver

Former PCGG commissioner Ruben Carranza said the PCGG and the OSG would have a hard time stopping the settlement as the government already withdrew the limited waiver of immunity that it filed in the previous administration to assert claim to those assets.

“The OSG and PCGG replaced the Philippine lawyer in New York and instructed the new one to withdraw the limited waiver of immunity and instead effectively not participate in the case,” he told The STAR.

“This is why the PCGG and OSG cannot now claim that they can stop the settlement in New York,” he added.

Carranza said the previous PCGG correctly agreed to a limited waiver as it would not harm the Philippine claim while also expediting a possible settlement with the victims.

Munsayac earlier maintained that the government is not abandoning the case in New York but is merely asserting its sovereign immunity over the assets.

“The properties subject of the New York case are also included in a pending Sandiganbayan case. Thus, the republic feels that it will be best for the interest of the state to await the resolution of the Sandiganbayan case and to hold in abeyance the proceedings in New York,” Munsayac said last year.