Martial law victims to get $1,000 each

HONOLULU – A federal judge on Thursday approved the distribution of $7.5 million to settle a lawsuit filed by thousands of victims of torture, execution and kidnapping under the regime of the late former President Ferdinand Marcos.

The distribution provides victims their first opportunity to collect something since they sued in 1986.

Each of 7,526 eligible members of the class-action lawsuit will receive $1,000 under the plan approved by US District Judge Manuel Real. Distribution is expected to begin in mid-February and take about a month.

Robert Swift, the lead attorney in the case, said the payments were an important milestone for victims who have been fighting for years. Most of the victims or their surviving family members live in the Philippines.

“We know they are anxious for distribution. Most of our members are poor, very poor, and live in a Third World country that hasn’t compensated them for any injuries they suffered, or loss of loved ones,” Swift said during a hearing at federal court in Honolulu.

One thousand dollars may not seem like much, but the money would go far in the Philippines, where per capita income is about $1,700, Swift said.

The funds come from a $10-million settlement of a case against individuals controlling Texas and Colorado land bought with Marcos money. Legal fees and a payment to the person who located the properties will consume most of the remaining $2.5 million of the settlement.

The victims’ payments will go a short way toward fulfilling a $2-billion judgment against the Marcos estate in 1995. A federal jury awarded the money after finding the late dictator liable for torture, summary executions and disappearances of political opponents during his 20-year rule.

The victims never received any funds until now, however, because of disputes over Marcos’ property. The Philippine government maintains all Marcos property was stolen from the Filipino people and has fought any distribution to victims of human rights violations.

This latest case was an exception, however, because Manila had already settled its own claim against the people who control the land in Colorado and Texas.

Swift said his team is still pursuing an additional $70 million in Marcos assets through courts in New York and Singapore.

The class-action lawsuit was filed in Hawaii because Marcos fled to Honolulu to live in exile after he was deposed in the “people power” revolution of 1986.

Marcos died in exile in 1989 without admitting any wrongdoing.

Swift said the case was groundbreaking in that it was the first class-action lawsuit filed anywhere in the world for human rights violations.

“The challenge was to show that it could be done. And it could be done efficiently and the court could manage the case efficiently. And I think we accomplished all of that,” Swift said.

* PCGG probes compromise deal

The Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) will look into the $10-million compromise agreement forged by the group of the late Filipino-Chinese businessman and Marcos crony Jose Yao-Campos with the human rights victims of Marcos over Texas and Colorado real estate properties in the US.

PCGG chairman Andres Bautista said that the agency got information that a US court recently approved the settlement, which would pave the way for the distribution of P7.5 million to the rights victims, while the remaining $2.5 million would be used to pay legal fees.

“We are aware of that. Right now, we’re studying it to see whether or not there was material nondisclosure on the part of the Campos group with respect to these properties,” Bautista told The STAR.

Bautista said the PCGG, while not a party to the case, could go after the properties especially if they found out that these were not disclosed by Campos in his 1987 compromise deal with the PCGG, then chaired by former Senate president Jovito Salonga.

“We were not party to the case. But that does not prevent us from trying to go after these properties,” Bautista said.

The 1987 compromise agreement between Campos and the Salonga-led PCGG involved the businessman’s turnover of numerous properties and shares of stock in companies which he admitted he held in trust for their real owner, Marcos, in exchange for the government not going after his assets, mainly Filipino drug giant United Laboratories, and his real estate company, Greenfield Development.

The properties he surrendered were shares of stock in the Philippine Telecommunications Investment Corp., which held a substantial stake in telecommunications giant Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co., and the vast Payanig sa Pasig land in Pasig City.

Last September, the victims struggling to collect on the landmark $2-billion compensation awarded them by a US District Court in 1994 got a $10-million settlement deal with several holding companies controlled by the heirs of Campos that own real estate properties in Texas and Colorado in the US.

The victims have faced legal obstacles in collecting on the $2-billion award, with the challenge mainly from the Philippine government which has always fought to have the Marcos ill-gotten wealth forfeited in its favor.

All the forfeited ill-gotten wealth of the Marcoses and their cronies goes to fund the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program as decreed by the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law.

A federal court in Texas had given preliminary approval to the $10-million settlement in favor of the rights victims to compensate them for the abuses committed against them during the Marcos regime.