The people's money

Published by the Visayan Daily Star Publications, Inc.

NINFA R. LEONARDIA Editor-in-Chief & President

CARLA P. GOMEZ Editor CHERYL CRUZ Desk Editor PATRICK PANGILINAN Busines Editor NIDA A. BUENAFE Sports Editor RENE GENOVE Bureau Chief, Dumaguete MAJA P. DELY Advertising Coordinator

CARLOS ANTONIO L. LEONARDIA Administrative Officer

The Sandiganbayan has ordered the transfer of the so-called Arelma account of the late strongman Ferdinand Marcos amounting to $42 million from the Philippine National Bank to the National Treasury where it truly belongs. The funds represent the assets of the former president, originally amounting to $2 million, deposited with Merril Lynch Securities in New York in 1972 in the name of Arelma Foundation.

The order was based on the Supreme Court ruling denying with finality the appeals filed by former first lady and now Ilocos Norte Rep. Imelda Marcos and Sen. Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on the anti-graft court rulings in April and August 2009 that resulted from the Presidential Commission on Good Government initiated forfeiture cases in 1991. The civil case recovered some $660 million from five Marcos Swiss Foundations in 2003, including the Arelma account.

A Philippine government that has recovered but a fraction of the Marcos loot that is estimated to run from 2 – 10 billion US Dollars will have a difficult time eliminating corruption from the system as long as the plunderers and thieves in our government know that crime pays handsomely, and their family members know that a forgiving and forgetful Filipino public will gladly put any disgraced dynasty back in power even as they fight tooth and nail to keep the spoils of their plundering patriarch or matriarch.

What is worse: That it took almost a quarter century for that fraction of the stolen money to be recovered and returned to the national treasury? Or that the members of the Marcos family that benefited from the looting and have been unashamedly resorting to every legal trick in the book to prevent the money from being returned to the nation's coffers only needed the same amount of time for the Filipino public to forget the damage the Marcos rule has wrought upon our treasury?

Is this why today's plunderers do not seem to be so worried over their imprisonment and the charges that have been filed against them? Do they know that with the best legal defense teams their stolen money can buy, and a little patience; they not only get to keep most of their loot but they also get to sashay their way back to power the way the Marcos family has?

We can only hope that the current administration's focus on fighting corruption has resulted in significant improvements to the system and strengthened the institutions that are supposed to stamp out this seemingly unbeatable scourge.*