Marcos wealth cases: Flying out the window

On Oct. 4, the Sandiganbayan Second Division granted a motion by Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and his mother – in behalf of the Marcos Sr. estate – to dismiss an ill-gotten wealth civil case against them. Supposedly, because of the “inordinate delay” in its prosecution, justice was being done to them.

Of 43 civil and forfeiture cases filed against the Marcoses at the country’s anti-graft court, it was the seventh to be dismissed under the Marcos Jr. administration. The cases were filed against the family and their associates starting in 1986 (following the ouster of the dictatorship) until 1995.

In 2023, the Sandiganbayan dismissed two similar cases allegedly for lack of evidence.

Promptly, the activist group CARMMA (Campaign Against the Return of the Marcoses and Martial Law) angrily denounced the denial of justice to the Filipino people. Others just sighed and shook their heads. People who could afford to do so again began to think seriously of relocating to foreign lands.

The case involves 12 prime real estate properties in the Philippines and in the United States worth P276 million, purchased through Marcos’ alleged dummy Roman Cruz Jr. The values of the properties are deemed disproportionate to the respondents’ declared legal incomes at the time these were bought.

These assets (now worth tremendously more) include two residential properties and two condominium units in Baguio, a residential building in Makati, residential land in Metro Manila, and a parcel of land and six condominium units in California, USA.

For three decades, the case was practically unmoving in the Sandiganbayan. It surfaced with “suspicious timeliness,” as an acerbic observer noted, under the Marcos Jr. administration. Thus, upon a motion by the mother-and-son defendants, dismissal was inevitable.

The Marcoses claimed that the allegations against the Marcos estate could no longer be substantiated because the Sandiganbayan had already dismissed the case in October 2012. They further claimed that the Supreme Court had eventually ordered the Marcos estate to be excluded from the bill of particulars previously filed.

A bill of particulars is a written itemization of claims in a lawsuit that the defendant/accused may demand from the plaintiff/complainant.

Upholding their claim, the Sandiganbayan noted that “it appears that all allegations against the Marcoses were struck down… There is no more reason to proceed against them.” The Supreme Court, the anti-graft court further noted, found merit in the defendants’ argument that their constitutional right to a speedy disposition of the case had been violated.

The 1987 Constitution guarantees that all persons have the right to “a speedy disposition of their cases before all judicial, quasi-judicial, or administrative bodies.” This provision applies in the Marcos case, the court pointed out, considering that over 30 years have passed without it being decided.

The Sandiganbayan cited the following grounds for dismissal:

+ “The burden is not upon (the Marcoses) to ensure that the wheels of justice continue to turn to expedite the pre-trial and start the trial within the bounds of reasonable timeliness.” They have thus been prejudiced because of this delay.

+ “The fact that the case was filed against them and pending before this Court where they are made to defend themselves, secure services of paid counsel, and spend for their bail is enough trouble and prejudice to them.”

+ The Marcoses can no longer be afforded a fair trial, because “the witnesses may have already died and the documentary evidence may no longer be located after more than 30 years from the filing of the complaint.”

+ “Considering that the extant living defendant is 95 years old [referring to Imelda Romualdez-Marcos], her ability to testify and recall the events has assuredly declined, as her health.”

As earlier pointed out, this is the seventh civil case against the Marcoses that the Sandiganbayan has dismissed.

In December 2019, the anti-graft court ruled against a civil case in which the Marcos family was charged with pocketing P200 billion worth of ill-gotten wealth. In a 58-page decision, the Sandiganbayan’s Fourth Division dismissed the forfeiture case due to the “inability of the prosecution” to prove the allegations against the Marcoses.

Then in June 2023, the Sandiganbayan dismissed another civil case against them. On what basis? The Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG), the state agency that filed the cases, presented several pieces of evidence that were deemed “inadmissible as judicial evidence.”

Was that a case of incompetence on the part of the PCGG in selecting the appropriate evidence presented in court, or was there another hindering or intervening factor?

The latest failure of the state prosecutors to prove their graft cases led to the Sandiganbayan’s ruling, last February 2024, dismissing the charges against three alleged dummies of Ferdinand Marcos Sr. for accumulating P2.4 billion worth of properties believed to have been ill-gotten wealth.

An instant protest-denunciation followed the publication of the case dismissal.

“The Filipino people have once again been denied justice by the Sandiganbayan,” cried out CARMMA. Through its spokesperson Judy Taguiwalo, a long-time activist, academic, and survivor of human rights violations under martial law, the militant group denounced the negative outcome in the protracted litigations against the Marcoses and Marcos cronies before the anti-graft court.

It seems that sending the ill-gotten wealth cases flying out the window is a key component of the Marcos family’s project aiming to whitewash the crimes of the 14-year dictatorship. Were the “inordinate delay” and “prosecutorial incompetence” merely indicative of the frailties of our judicial system? Should we just “forgive and forget?”

“The slew of injustices form a pattern too obvious to miss,” Taguiwalo pointed out. “Ferdinand Marcos Jr. is determined to wield his power to do away with the legal encumbrances to his family’s recovery of all ill-gotten wealth that they amassed during his father’s dictatorship.”

“But the one encumbrance he cannot do away with,” she stressed, “is the Filipino people’s stiff resistance to a repetition of the era of Marcosian plunder.”