A story on two Marcos trials

This is a story on two Marcos trials – one in Manila and another in New York. Reliable sources said that the trial in New York was a bargaining chip for US bases in the Philippines to the Cory Aquino government. The reasoning was we could not get a just trial under our corrupt judicial system.

Therefore today’s Marcos trial in Manila was expected. It comes as no surprise that after more than 30 years since it was filed, a civil forfeiture case of P102 billion in moral and exemplary damages from the Marcos family and their cronies was junked by the anti-graft court Sandiganbayan. The reason: insufficiency of evidence.

The court said in a 67-page decision last Aug. 5: “Plaintiff (Philippine government) miserably failed to adduce evidence to hold defendants Ferdinand E. Marcos and Imelda R. Marcos liable under any of the causes of action set out in the amended complaint.” This is legal gobbledygook.

Adding salt to the Filipino people’s wound it further said “It saddens the Court that it took more than 30 years before this case is submitted for decision and yet, the prosecution failed to present sufficient evidence to sustain any of the causes of action against the remaining defendants.” The decision was made by Associate Justice Lonfel Pahimna with the concurrence of Associate Justices Oscar Herrera Jr. and Michael Frederick Musngi.

Also acquitted were Jose Tengco Jr., Placido Mapa Jr., Rafael Sison, Don Ferry, Ramon Monzon, Generosa Olazo, Cynthia Cheong, Ma. Luisa Nograles, Leopoldo Vergara, Jose Africa and Rodolfo Arambulo.

The forfeiture case was about the alleged grant of excessive loans to several firms, especially to the shipping companies owned by the late ambassador to Japan, Roberto Benedicto, during the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos’ martial law regime.

The case was about how Benedicto unjustly enriched himself and the Marcoses with funds meant for the improvement of facilities of state broadcast networks International Broadcasting Corp. (IBC-13), Radio Philippine Network Inc. (RPN-9) and Banahaw Broadcasting Corp. (BBC-2).

The PCGG, however, did not specify in its complaint the total amount of public funds it seeks to recover or to be forfeited from Benedicto and the Marcoses, but asks for at least P102 billion in moral and exemplary damages as well as actual, temperate and nominal damages in sums left at the discretion of the court.”

The court said the prosecution failed to present their key witnesses during the trial to authenticate their affidavits.

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Now for the other trial in the New York Court.  I was government spokesman and had a front seat. There was enough evidence and direct witnesses against the Marcos regime. But Ferdinand died before the trial began.

Imelda loves to say that the judicial system of the US is just and incorruptible and it has acquitted her. I beg to differ. As a front bench watcher of the NY trial I saw the documents presented as well as heard witnesses tell their stories. It was an airtight case according to law but she was also acquitted. Lawyers I talked to even before the trial began said she will be acquitted despite the evidence presented in court. I wrote about the trial in my book “The Verdict.”

She had escaped answering for the crimes committed during the Marcos dictatorship. She proudly says because in America justice cannot be bought. The suggestion is that having been acquitted by an American court wipes away her guilt for the crimes as a partner in the Marcos regime.

The decision was political. It was the court of New York vs. the Department of State. It is American policy that another country’s leader, if an ally of the US, should not be convicted.

There were many factors extraneous to the case that decided her acquittal but the most important was the venue. This is explained in the chapter Imelda is tried in New York. There are five chapters to the book: The Lopezes, The Affair, Imelda - The “richest woman in the world,” Imelda is tried in New York and The Unsolved Murder.

The trial skirted the crimes she was being accused of when she was First Lady of the Philippines by the legal imperative that she could only be tried for crimes she committed in the US.

The legal term for the charges against Imelda in New York was called RICO, Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act and these were committed  in the US. It was directed against her acts of racketeering and the transfer of money from the Philippines to the US and how it was moved from state to state. The prosecution worked hard and presented some 360,000 documents and dozens of witnesses, some of whom were flown from Manila at the court’s expense.

The prosecution’s task was two-fold. It had to prove that the money was the fruit of corruption in the Philippines before it could go to the issue of RICO in the US.

I have put together some facts and events that led to the Marcos fall.  It was about her media image as “one of the richest women in the world” from one of the poorest countries. That was the scandal.

The Untold Story of Imelda Marcos that became a cause célèbre before the declaration of martial law was almost an accident. I was led to it as if blindfolded, not knowing what the consequences of writing it would be. It would change my life as it also did my husband’s and children’s. In the next 20 years we would live in exile in London.