Philippine election bombshell as tax agency says front runner Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Marcos owes US$3.9 billion on his father’s estate
- It’s more than 30 years since his dictator father died, but Marcos Jnr still hasn’t paid a centavo of the huge tax bill on his estate
- Political opponents hope the news will dent the appeal of a politician leading opinion polls ahead of the May 9 election. Marcos, meanwhile, has cried ‘fake news’
That much was confirmed by the country’s tax agency chief Caesar Dulay in a letter dated March 14 but released on Wednesday, in a development that opposition parties hope will dent Marcos’ popular appeal ahead of the May 9 election. A poll this week found Marcos’ approval ratings at 60 per cent, far ahead of his nearest rival Leni Robredo on 15 per cent.
The revelation about Marcos Jnr’s tax affairs comes after the opposition Aksyon Demokratiko Party asked Bureau of Internal Revenue chief to end months of speculation about whether he had paid the dues.
Marcos Snr died in 1989 but his family faced a long legal fight to inherit his fortune as the late dictator and his wife were accused of stashing up to US$10 billion obtained illegally during his multi-decade reign. In 2009, Marcos Jnr won a lawsuit at the Supreme Court naming him as the coexecutor of his father’s estate, along with his mother Imelda. The ruling went against the Bureau of Internal Revenue, which had wanted to auction off the family’s properties to help pay for the estate tax.
Dulay’s letter makes clear that in the 13 years since that ruling, the estate taxes have remained unpaid.
It’s unclear whether the news will harm Marcos Jnr’s chances at the polls, but it has already been seized on by opposition groups. One of them, Akbayan, is now calling on the government to collect the taxes and use them to fund a jobs programme for the estimated 1.97 million Filipinos who have lost work to the Covid-19 pandemic.