SC affirms forfeiture of Marcoses' Malacañang jewelry collection

MANILA- The Supreme Court has affirmed a Sandiganbayan ruling in June 2014 in favor of the forfeiture of the so-called Malacañang Jewelry collection (Malacañang Collection) of the Marcos family.

In a 21-page decision dated January 18, 2016, penned by Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno, the high court ruled that it found "no reversible error in the ruling of the Sandiganbayan" over the seized jewelry collection, one of three forfeited collections, seized from the presidential palace after the 1986 People Power Revolution, and transferred to the Central Bank on March 1, 1986.

The anti-graft court issued a Partial Summary Judgment on January 13, 2014 and a resolution for the forfeiture of the collection on June 11, 2014, through a Special Division.

The high court said the Sandiganbayan was correct to grant the forfeiture in favor of government.

"[T]he Sandiganbayan correctly held that the forfeiture was justified and that the Malacañang Collection was subject to forfeiture.

"We reiterate what we have already stated in Republic vs Sandiganbayan, and subsequently in Marcos vs Republic, that 'whenever ang public officer or employee has acquired during his incumbency an amount of property which is manifestly out of proportion to his salary.... said property shall be presumed prima facie to be unlawfully acquired," the SC said.

Based on a 1991 valuation of auction house Christie, Manson and Woods Intl., Inc., the subject collection was US $110,055 to US $153,089.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Gov't OKs sale of multi-million Marcos jewelry collection

The privatization and management office has approved the sale of a controversial Marcos jewelry collection.

Finance Undersecretary Gil Beltran, chair of the Private Management Office said the sale of the so-called Hawaii collection will proceed as planned after the Marcos family voluntarily relinquished ownership of the jewelry set.

Beltran said proceeds from the sale will go to the Bureau of Treasury and Presidential Commission on Good Government.

The Hawaii collection includes a rare 25-carat barrel-shaped pink diamond, and was among those appraised by Christie's and rival Sotheby's in November last year.

It could be recalled that the pink diamond was initially valued at $5 million.

"Some of the pieces are so important, so magnificent. There's a very wide variety of pieces - antique to modern, which is again what you would see in a current day royal collection - things that fit every occasion. So if you put me in there to value the jewelry and I had no knowledge of where it came from, I would say this feels like a royal collection," David Warren, director of jewelry at London-based Christie's, had said in the November report.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Marcoses bared in new WikiLeaks files

MANILA - The ostentatious display of wealth by former President Ferdinand Marcos and former First Lady Imelda Marcos during the late strongman's rule in the 1970s left US embassy officials disgusted, according to newly published diplomatic cables released by anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks.


During a birthday, for example, Marcos had a "two-day blast carefully orchestrated by his wife Imelda" even if "officially controlled Manila press reported that president Marcos spent a quiet birthday at his desk," according to US embassy cable "1973MANILA10390_b" dated 1973 September 12, 1973.


The celebrations, attended by senior government and military officials, as well as by chiefs of diplomatic missions, eclipsed the funeral services of the late Rufino Cardinal Santos, which happened at the same time.

A parade, dinner, concert, floor show, and other events were held during Marcos' 2-day birthday celebration.

It was too much to bear for then US Ambassador to Manila William H. Sullivan.

Sullivan, in his confidential memo to the US Department of State, said the celebration was "too much, too long, and in questionable taste."

He said all top-ranking military officers, except for then Philippine Constabulary Chief Fidel V. Ramos, were required to "parade in garish female attire" during a floor show amid the festivities.

"This caused much grumbling among military hierarchy, and wives of service chiefs stood conspicuously in a grim, un-smiling phalanx throughout the hilarity," Sullivan said.

"This whole affair was a saccharine suffusion of sycophancy which reminded me unhappily of the heydays of Sukarno and Sihanouk," he added.

"Although Imelda was responsible, the president seemed to enjoy it and appeared unaware of the negative vibrations among his courtiers, especially the senior military, upon whom so much of his future programs will depend," he said.

"Only the Marcos children, to their credit, appeared embarrassed by the display," Sullivan said.

Around 16,000 memos of the US embassy in Manila from 1973 to 1976 are included in the around 1.7-million "Kissinger Files" cables published by WikiLeaks.

Some of the early memos discuss the Philippines' Sabah claim, the Moro unrest in Mindanao, as well as the Spratlys.

WikiLeaks, in an explanatory note, said the memos cover a variety of diplomatic traffic including cables, intelligence reports and congressional correspondence.

"They include more than 320,000 originally classified records, including 286,000 full US diplomatic cables. There are more than 12,000 documents with the sensitive handling restriction "NODIS", 'no distribution', and more than 9,000 labelled "Eyes Only". Full cables originally classed as "SECRET" total more than 61,000 and "CONFIDENTIAL" more than 250,000," it added.

It said the records were reviewed by the United States Department of State's 25-year declassification process.

"At review, the records were assessed and either declassified or kept classified with some or all of the metadata records declassified. Both sets of records were then subject to an additional review by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). Once believed to be releasable, they were placed as individual PDFs at the National Archives as part of their Central Foreign Policy Files collection," Wikileaks said.

"Despite the review process supposedly assessing documents after 25 years there are no diplomatic records later than 1976. The formal declassification and review process of these extremely valuable historical documents is therefore currently running 12 years late," it added.

WikiLeaks said it obtained and reverse-engineered 1.7 million PDFs. It also performed a detailed analysis of the documents, "and corrected a great many errors introduced by NARA, the State Department or its diplomats, for example harmonizing the many different ways in which departments, capitals and people's names were spelled."

"Tens of thousands of documents were irreversibly corrupted in this data set due to technical errors when the documents were moved as computer systems were upgraded, or so the US Department of State claims. This caused the content of the document to be lost, though the metadata is still available," it said.

source: abs-cbnnews.com

Sandiganbayan urged to decide on Marcos jewels

MANILA, Philippine – The special division of the Sandiganbayan has been urged by government lawyers to resolve the forfeiture case involving jewelries confiscated from the Marcos family in 1986.

The “Malacañang Jewelry Collection," composed of sets of gems and baubles, are believed to be worth between $110,055 and $153,089.

The set of jewels was turned over the Central Bank after it was left abandoned in the Palace by the Marcoses.

Lawyers of the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) and Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) earlier asked the graft court to declare the jewels forfeited in favor of the State.

The Marcos family, meanwhile, claimed that the motion for partial summary judgment filed by the government was improper because a first motion was denied on November 20, 1997.

On December 29, 2010, however, the graft court denied the Omnibus Motion of the Marcoses.

With the ruling, government lawyers said the Sandiganbayan can now decide on the ownership dispute.

"Verily, the proceeding to forfeit these assets by summary judgment is ripe for judicial determination and disposition," they said.

The lawyers argued that the jewels should go to the government because the total assets of the Marcoses previously forfeited by the courts were already well beyond their lawful income of $304,372.43 in 1986.

The government lawyers are: Assistant Solicitor General John Emmanuel F. Madamba; associate solicitors Moses V. Florendo and Camille R. Buhain; PCGG commissioners Richard R.T. Amurao and Ma. Ngina Teresa V. Chan-Gonzaga; and PCGG Legal Division chief Ma. Luisa M. Narvadez.

source: abs-cbnnews.com