Duterte OKs auction of Marcos jewelry worth more than P700M

TOKYO — President Rodrigo Duterte has approved the sale of Marcos jewelry worth more than P700 million and wants agencies to ensure that the proceeds would benefit Filipinos, Malacañang said Thursday.

Presidential spokesman Salvador Panelo said a formal ordering allowing the auction is in the offing.

"The president said last night (May 29) he wants the people to benefit from the jewelries. So I asked him, 'Are you going to give your go signal to sell?,' 'Yes.' The proceeds of the sale should reach the people," Panelo said in a chance interview here.

Asked when the president would issue the order, Panelo replied: "It depends on him. But he agrees with it."

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The Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG), the agency tasked to recover the ill-gotten wealth of the Marcos family and their cronies, had been seeking the president's nod on its proposal to auction off one of three jewelry collections of Ilocos Norte Rep. Imelda Marcos, the widow of ousted dictator Ferdinand.

The so-called Hawaii jewelry collection has an estimated value of P704.8 million.

The Commission on Audit earlier called out PCGG over its continued failure to sell more than P1 billion worth of assets the government recovered from the Marcos family and from cronies.

COA records also showed that a total of P1.0181 billion of the recovered ill-gotten assets remain unsold. This includes the "Hawaii collection" and properties that were seized from the family when they fled to Hawaii in 1986.

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Other Marcos assets to be placed on the auction block are real estate properties and shares of stocks with a total value of P1.081 billion. — with Kristine Joy Patag