Bongbong urged: Explain source of wealth

MANILA, Philippines - Vice presidential candidate Sen. Ferdinand Marcos Jr. must explain to the public the source of his wealth, a non-government organization said yesterday.

In a telephone interview, Bonifacio Ilagan, Campaign Against the Return of the Marcoses to Malacañang spokesman, said based on his 2014 statement of assets, liabilities and net worth, Marcos has a net worth of P509.7 million.

“He has no other job except being a governor and a senator and if you compute the total of salaries from those since he became a government official, it cannot make you that rich,” he said. 

“He has to explain where his wealth came from. Was it inheritance? If so, how did his family accumulate such wealth?” 

Ilagan said in 2003, the Supreme Court had ruled that at least $683 million in Swiss bank deposits of the Marcoses were ill-gotten, not counting other assets also suspected to be stolen.

“We can only surmise that his wealth was ill-gotten,” he said.

Ilagan said Marcos was trying to trivialize the issue of his wealth by reasoning that it was derived from investments but he did not present any details to prove it.

He also cited the pork barrel cases where Marcos was among the senators involved in undertaking billions of pesos worth of ghost projects.

Marcos had tapped the services of a certain Catherine Mae Santos as his agent for the scam, according to the testimony of Janet Lim-Napoles, who is now facing trial for plunder before the Sandiganbayan.

Ilagan also said it was “pathetic” for Marcos to be scouting for his presidential candidate last year until he ended up being able to convince Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago to be his runningmate.