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Imelda Marcos kisses her late husband's glass coffin. Photo: AP

Epic hunt for Marcos embezzled wealth fails

Search for late dictator's US$10b fortune is becoming futile and too expensive, with just US$5b recovered so far, says chief investigator

AFP

The Philippines is to wrap up a near-30-year hunt for the embezzled wealth of late dictator Ferdinand Marcos, with more than half the supposed US$10 billion fortune still missing.

With Marcos' widow and children back in positions of political power, and the government tightening its belt, the cost of the pursuit had become prohibitive, said the man in charge of the search, Andres Bautista, head of the Presidential Commission on Good Government.

"It has become a law of diminishing returns at this point," Bautista said.

"It's been 26 years and people you are after are back in power. At some point, you just have to say, 'We've done our best', and that's that."

Bautista, 48, left a high-paying corporate job two years ago to help the government of President Benigno Aquino, who promised to end corruption and uplift the lives of millions of poor Filipinos.

Despite numerous criminal and civil cases being filed against them, none of the Marcos heirs or their cronies who have been accused of plundering government coffers have so far been successfully prosecuted, while high-powered lawyers have been used to tie up the judicial process for years on end.

Bautista said long-term mishandling of the commission had led to an unmanageable paper trail and evidence had gone missing, leading to bitter court losses.

The current president's late mother and democracy icon, Corazon Aquino, replaced Marcos after a bloodless people power revolt ended his 20-year regime in 1986 and sent him and his family into US exile.

She made it her first priority to create the commission, tasked with recovering all of Marcos's wealth. Conservative estimates put the worth of assets and funds looted from government coffers at US$10 billion.

But before she left office she allowed Marcos's flamboyant widow, Imelda - known for her thousands of pairs of shoes - and their son and two daughters to return home. And over the past two decades the Marcoses have regained and consolidated their political base.

Marcos's son, Ferdinand Marcos Jnr, is a senator who has hinted at contesting the presidency in the 2016 elections.

Imelda is expected to run for a second term in the House of Representatives in May, while her daughter Imee, governor of the family's Ilocos Norte provincial bailiwick, is also widely thought to want a second term. Since its creation, the agency has recovered 164 billion pesos (HK$30.88 billion) some invested in prime New York real estate, jewellery and about US$600 million stashed in secret numbered Swiss bank accounts.

The jewellery, including a 150-carat giant Burmese ruby and diamond tiara, is locked in a vault at the central bank, and at one point the international auction house Christie's estimated it could fetch up to US$8.5 million.

More recently Bautista worked closely with the New York district attorney's office to charge a former personal secretary of Imelda and two others over a conspiracy to sell a Monet painting that had been bought by the family.

Marcos, an astute art buyer, distributed the priceless collection of at least 300 artworks to cronies when his regime was about to crumble. Only half have been recovered so far and the rest are missing.

Bautista said he had recommended to Benigno Aquino that the commission wind down its operations and transfer its work to the justice department.

If Aquino agrees he would have to get parliament to pass a law abolishing the agency.

"They [the Marcos family] have the resources to go head-to-head with us in respect to litigation. Why do you think forfeiture cases are still languishing 26 years after?" Bautista said.

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: hunt for marcos loot winds down
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