World's top auction houses set to appraise Marcos jewelry

Representatives from the world's largest auction house are in Manila to appraise three sets of Marcos jewels which are stored at the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP).

Christie's and Sotheby's are set to appraise the jewels including the Malacañang collection, which was abandoned when the Marcoses fled the Palace; the Hawaii collection, seized by the US Bureau of Customs upon the Marcoses' arrival in Hawaii in 1986; and the Roumeliotes collection that Demetriou Roumeliotes attempted to smuggle out of the country after the ouster of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos.

A 1991 assessment valued the three jewelry collections at 5 to 7 million dollars.

Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) Chair Richard Amurao said the appraisal is a significant step in determining the jewels' current value, which will also open the way for determining a final resolution on the assets.

- ANC, Market Edge, November 24, 2015

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

Quezon's ghost and other Palace spooks

MANILA, Philippines – The Malacañan Palace has been home not only to this country’s leaders, but also to many supernatural elements, at least according to tales from the Palace’s past residents, including the Marcoses.

Malacañan Palace, with its history-laden walls and creaky floors, has its own share of spine-tingling spooky stories--from ghosts of dead presidents to headless security aides.

The ghosts of Presidents Manuel L. Quezon and Manuel Roxas reportedly spooked the Marcoses, who were the Palace’s longest residents from 1965 to 1986.






The daughter of then President Ferdinand Marcos, Imee, reportedly saw President Quezon’s ghost in the Presidential Study.

According to malacanang.gov.ph, Imee said her father even considered holding a séance to summon Quezon to solicit advice on negotiating with the Americans.

Historian and journalist Ambeth Ocampo has also posited that President Quezon’s ghost would “[pace] the Palace during times of crisis.”  These sightings eventually inspired the Marcoses to renovate the Palace.

The Palace has been the residence of Spanish and American leaders since it was built in 1750, but President Quezon is known to be its first Filipino resident.





The Quezon Executive Office in Kalayaan Hall was named after him, and it is not spared from spooky tales from Palace employees.

They said the lights at the office, inexplicably, would suddenly switch on late at night.

Even Raul Gonzalez, who claims to be the longest resident of Malacañan after Marcos, had his own Quezon ghost story as shared to him by his father, architect Arturo Gonzalez.

The younger Gonzalez said on the day President Quezon died, his father heard the door of President Quezon’s parked Chrysler “opening and slamming shut.”

But the only son of President Quezon, Nonong Quezon, told national artist Nick Joaquin that “he saw none of the ghosts supposed to haunt the Palace; the horridest happening there that he remembers is a snake being caught in his room,” as quoted by malacanang.gov.ph.

President Roxas reportedly also spooked the Marcoses during their stay at the Palace.

Malacañang’s website said the Marcos children would avoid the State Dining Room and the former First Lady Imelda Marcos would insist that she is accompanied to the bathroom whenever they are near the area.

The State Dining Room is where the body of President Roxas had reportedly lain in state, malacanang.gov.ph said.

'Lost souls'



The Palace is believed to have been used by the Japanese Army as its headquarters during World War II, naturally sparking debate on “lost souls” seen wandering Malacañan’s halls.

The ghost of an American chaplain known only as “Father Brown”, who was supposedly killed by Japanese troops during the war, is also said to be roaming the Palace.

Former Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye, meanwhile, has shared a sighting of a “white-haired man wearing a dark suit” who seemed to follow him inside the Palace.

Even the Palace’s current resident, President Benigno Aquino III, related how Palace guards would talk about pianos playing by itself and the sound of footsteps down the halls.

Headless aide

But while most of the tales are a vague recounting of a sighting or eerie sounds, one story had what seemed to be photographic evidence.

In one of the photographs used for Malacañan Palace: The Official Illustrated History, the photographer captured an image of what seemed to be a headless member of the Presidential Security Group wearing a barong.

“The image has sparked much speculation, feeding suspicions of the Palace being the ultimate haunted house—and prompting many of the book’s owners to splay its pages open to visitors,” malacanang.gov.ph said.

However, photographer Wig Tysmans dismissed speculations, saying the distorted image may have been caused by long exposure.

Ghosts or not, these tales of supernatural beings roaming the halls of Malacañan Palace will continue to haunt those staying, and visiting, one of the country’s oldest structures.

source: abs-cbnnews.com