What will Bongbong do if he becomes president

President wannabe Bongbong Marcos denies knowledge of his family’s ill-gotten wealth. Yet only three years ago his mother, former first lady Imelda Romualdez Marcos, was convicted of seven counts of graft involving $200 million. Proven before the Sandiganbayan was that she deposited the amount in seven Swiss bank accounts during her 1980s tenure as assemblywoman, housing minister and Metro Manila head. BBM was already adult in the ‘80s, the vice governor then governor of Ilocos, and being groomed in politics by his father, dictator Ferdinand Marcos.

BBM shuns media interviews in which he expects the wealth issue to be raised. He insists it’s not of any election interest.

That fuels suspicion of a hidden agenda in aspiring for the highest office. Does he intend to insert minions in the Presidential Commission on Good Government to let the Marcoses retake P174 billion in confiscated cash, real estate, bonds, commercial papers and jewelry? Then abolish the PCGG to stop it from recovering P125 billion more in plundered assets?

The Bureau of Internal Revenue in 1991 assessed P23.3 billion in estate tax of Marcos Sr. who died two years prior. BBM, the estate administrator, has ignored collection notices for three decades. With interest and surcharges, the arrears have since ballooned to P203.8 billion.

If BBM becomes president, will he instruct the subordinate BIR to waive the P203.8 billion? Not farfetched. Tax evasion is a BBM habit. That’s why he was convicted of four counts of failure to file yearly income tax returns while an Ilocos official in 1982, 1983, 1984 and 1985.

Online trolls claim that poor BBM and family were in Honolulu exile in those years. False. He was very much in the Philippines until they fled the People Power Revolt in February 1986.

BBM says he will not disclose his annual Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth if he becomes president. That’s despite the SALN being the first measure of a public official’s probity. BBM claims that publicizing SALNs, a Constitutional requirement, only opens an officeholder to political harassment. He makes it sound as if government position is a huge sacrifice and not a dynastic motive.

As senator in 2010-2016, BBM did not voluntarily release his SALNs. The Senate Secretariat posted the SALNs of all by majority decision.

From his SALNs, BBM declared a net worth of P600,000 on becoming a congressman in 1992. By 2010 when he became senator, it had grown to P315.55 million. By midterm in 2013, it was P442 million.

Also in the 2013 SALN, BBM stated a second net worth computation of P197.47 million, based on real property tax declarations. The P442 million supposedly was based on property appraisal.

During the 2016 vice presidential election debate, BBM could not answer fellow-candidates’ questions on how his personal wealth had expanded exponentially. He was jobless between tenures and his only income source was public office, which pays low. He had no businesses, having closed down three unprofitable start-ups in 2013.

BBM was implicated in Janet Lim Napoles’ pork barrel scam of 2013. Whistleblower Benhur Luy testified at the Senate inquiry that BBM had placed P100 million in nine ghost projects of four bogus Napoles NGOs. But Luy’s computer files submitted as evidence showed that BBM channeled up to P360 million in 2011 and 2012.

Of the 25 past and sitting senators in Luy’s roster, only three were indicted: Juan Ponce Enrile, Jinggoy Estrada and Bong Revilla. Nothing has been heard since 2016 of a complaint of P205-million pork barrel plunder against BBM, filed by university students.

Enrile, Estrada and Revilla now support BBM’s presidential run. So does former president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, also previously indicted twice for P366-million plunder of charity sweepstakes funds and the $329-million national broadband network-ZTE scam.

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