Thursday, May 08, 2008 PCGG open to settlement with human rights victims
THE Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) on Wednesday welcomed the move of human rights victims to enter into a possible settlement with the government on their claim to the US$29 million assets of the late strongman President Ferdinand Marcos now being litigated by Singaporean courts.
“We welcomed the move of the human rights victims for a compromise. It is okay with us as long as we do not compromise the sovereign authority of the nation,” PCGG chairman Camilo Sabio said.
Earlier, Robert Swift, the American lawyer of the 9,539 human rights victims, said his clients want to settle with the government on the Marcos wealth not only on the assets being litigated by the Singaporean courts but also in the American courts.
Swift said they are asking President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to appoint an envoy to negotiate with the claimants.
He said they are open to an out-of-court settlement as long as it is beneficial to the victims adding that the decision was reached after a meeting with the group.
But Sabio also set his own condition for accepting a compromise on the issue. He said the decision or process must be approved by Philippine courts and must be in accordance with the country’s laws.
“I am amenable to such a compromise as long as it complied with our laws,” Sabio said.
This would mean though that the martial law victims will have to wait until Congress passes the law to revise the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (Carp) to enable the assets recovered from the Marcoses be made available to the claimants.
Under the current Carp law, all ill-gotten assets recovered by the government are directly allocated for the implementation of the agrarian reform program.
On the other hand, PCGG commissioner Narciso Nario said such an offer was already made by lawyer Rod Domingo, the Filipino counterpart of Swift, but nothing materialized then.
Nario also said the process is tedious and time-consuming. He said if the PCGG en banc decides to accept the agreement, it would still need to get the nod of the Department of Justice (DOJ), who in turn will submit to the Sandiganbayan.
Final approval of any settlement, according to Sabio, rests with the President.
Both the human rights victims and the government are in a virtual tug-of-war over the US$2.35-billion assets which the victims won in class suit against the Marcos estate in the US district Court in Honolulu in 1995.
These include the US$35-million Marcos deposits kept under Panamanian firm Arelma Inc. in Merrill Lynch, New York; the US$29 million kept in a Singapore branch of German bank West LB; and the tracts of lands located in Texas and Colorado titled under former Marcos crony Jose Campos.
The US Supreme Court (SC) is expected to render a final judgment on whether to uphold the decisions of the US District Court in Honolulu and the US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to award the US$35-million Arelma account of the Marcoses to the martial law victims by late June this year. Each of the martial law victims is expected to receive a US$2,500 share from the Arelma deposit.
Domingo said the Singapore SC is also expected to rule on the claims to the US$29-million Marcos deposits left in the Singapore branch of West LB.
The amount is part of the US$681-million Marcos Swiss deposits that the Swiss government has ordered returned to the Philippines in July 2005 after the Philippine SC declared that the funds are ill-gotten wealth of the Marcoses.
Marcos was ousted by a people’s revolt in 1986 and died in exile in Hawaii three years later. He was accused of plundering billions of dollars from Philippine coffers although his family denied this. (AH/Sunnex)
