Marcos camp disputes Carpio claim on ill-gotten wealth

The camp of presidential aspirant Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has dismissed as speculation the claim of retired Supreme Court justice Antonio Carpio that over P300 billion in ill-gotten wealth and unpaid taxes may not be recovered if he wins the presidential election in May.

Vic Rodriguez, Marcos’ spokesman, said the insinuation that Marcos will abolish the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG), which is still litigating cases involving ill-gotten wealth worth P125 billion, does not even deserve comment.

“We do not respond to a purely speculative scenario concocted by the same man who espouses divisiveness instead of national unity and have wrongly led equally righteous groups and individuals like him, in filing the numerous nuisance petitions (against Marcos). His signature ‘yellow political tirades’ purposely meant to foment intrigue such as this are better left ignored,” he said in a statement.

Carpio, during a virtual forum Thursday, said that apart from the PCGG cases, unpaid estate taxes of the Marcos family, now amounting to P203 billion due to interests and penalties, would also not be recovered by the government.

“That’s really the problem. If Bongbong Marcos becomes president, I do not expect the P125 billion to be recovered anymore. He will probably abolish the PCGG,” the retired magistrate was quoted as saying.

“Incidentally, Bongbong Marcos was also the court appointed administrator of the estate of Ferdinand Marcos. As court-appointed administrator, Bongbong Marcos has refused to pay the 25-year-old final estate tax liability of the Marcos estate,” he also said.

Meanwhile, the BBM-Sara UniTeam expressed yesterday their full support to the government and private sector initiative to produce Molnupiravir locally, saying this will be a big help in the battle against COVID-19.

According to the results of Phase 3 clinical trials in India for mild COVID cases, Molnupiravir, an oral treatment for coronavirus, significantly reduces viral load and more patients return negative RT-PCR results faster.

Marcos running mate Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte said the move to produce the medicine locally would greatly help in the long-term battle against COVID.

“We fully support this kind of initiative, and we intend to expand it so that more of our people can avail of this life-saving medicine. We also need to allow our local pharmaceutical industry to increase its manufacturing capacity to make Covid-19 treatments widely available and more affordable,” the UniTeam said. – Jose Rodel Clapano