Closure

The last stage to seek justice is at hand for the thousands of human rights victims who claimed having suffered in the hands of martial law administrators during the dark days of the Marcos regime in our country. The Human Rights Victims’ Claims Board (HRVCB) is set to distribute the remainder of the P10 billion out of the secret Swiss bank deposits recovered by the Philippine government from the late president Ferdinand Marcos.

The P10 billion in Swiss bank deposits were part of ill-gotten wealth of the Marcoses, much bigger amount of which remain untraced while others are still under litigation and being recovered by the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG). With its term of office due to lapse by May 12 this year, the Board has approved 9,204 claims they received and verified as true and real Marcos HR victims.

A quasi-judicial body, the nine-man HRVCB was created by Republic Act (RA) 10368, or the Human Rights Victims’ Reparation and Recognition Act of 2013. Among other things, the law mandated the award of monetary and non-monetary reparations to claimants verified as victims of Marcos’ HR abuses and violations.

The Board was supposed to have been dissolved in May 2016, but its lifespan was too short a period to complete the processing of claims that swelled to more than 75,000.

So, the 16th Congress passed into law RA 10766 that extended its life by two more years.

Once the Board ceases to exist, its 170 employees, only 61 of whom have plantilla positions, might likely be absorbed under the Memorial Museum/Library that the same law created. The Memorial Museum/Library will serve as the institution in honor and memory of the recognized victims of martial law HR violations. It has P500 million appropriations from the accrued interest of the P10-billion fund from Marcos’ Swiss bank deposits.

As envisioned by these laws, it will be able to close this sad chapter in our country’s history.

On the eve of the 32nd anniversary of the EDSA People Power Revolution, we featured as guests in our Kapihan sa Manila Bay last Wednesday retired police general Lina Sarmiento, HRVCB chairperson, and commissioner Pastor “Boy” Saycon of the EDSA People Power Commission.

Sarmiento is more popularly known as the country’s first female two-star police general when she was asked to go on early retirement in order to head the HRVCB in 2014. Saycon, on the other hand, is one of the known leaders supporting then PC-INP chief Gen. Fidel Ramos who led the People Power Revolution in EDSA ending the Marcos regime on that fateful day of Feb. 25,1986. 

During our weekly breakfast forum at Café Adriatico in Remedios Circle, Saycon took the opportunity to offer to Sarmiento a once unknown “logbook” which he has kept in a glass vault at his home and give it to become part of memorabilias of the soon-to-be set up Memorial Museum. Saycon revealed the “logbook” contains the names of detainees at Camp Crame in Quezon City who were rounded up when martial law was imposed on September 21,1972.

Saycon kept a secret “logbook” list to keep an inventory of all detainees. In this way, Saycon explained, they can keep track of the whereabouts of each of their fellow detainees as they were being moved out of their detention cells one after the other. 

And among those names in the “logbook” of Camp Crame detainees included the late opposition Senator Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr., our late STAR publisher Maximo V. Soliven and columnist Luis D. Beltran.

I ribbed Saycon that the pages of the logbook might have “yellowed” through the years. Saycon quickly retorted it has nothing to do with the so-called “yellow” color identified with the opposition leaders who figure prominently in every EDSA anniversary celebrations.

“EDSA is not just for the ‘yellow,’ or dilawan but for everyone. We invited all. This (celebration) is not exclusive but inclusive,” Saycon stressed.

Also during our Kapihan, Sarmiento told us the HRVCB is now focused on distributing monetary reparations. From the last count, Sarmiento reported the HRVCB processed 5,121 eligible claims that would get more than P362.4 million. Each of the Marcos HR victims has been given 50 percent of their individual claims as partial monetary reparation as they requested to President Rodrigo Duterte.

In January last year, Sarmiento disclosed, President Duterte called to a meeting at Malacañang the entire HRVCB to relay to them the urgent pleas from Marcos HR victims asking his intervention for the release of their compensation. Sarmiento said the Board shared the President’s concern that many of the claimants were already too old, weak and dying.

Since the law was “quiet” on partial payment of reparations, Sarmiento said the Board decided to allow such a scheme to give half of the amount due to each claimant pending the full completion of all claims that were mandated to be divided out of the P10 billion Marcos Swiss bank deposits. Actually, however, the total that would be divided among the eligible claimants would be P9.75 billion only.

This is because the P250 million were already used by the HRVCB as its source of operating expenses. As provided by its charter, the HRVCB was given a budget pegged at an annual ceiling of P50 million for the past four years of its existence.

She warned those who filed fraudulent claims that sapped their resources and efforts in verifying their supposed having suffered torture, illegal detention, desaparecidos (disappearances) etc. Sarmiento said they could refer “glaring” cases of fraudulent claims to the Department of Justice. Under the law, a person may be jailed for eight years for filing fraudulent claims.

Before the HRVCB bows out this May, Sarmiento hopes the P10-billion fund should be completely distributed among the claimants. And justice with reconciliation would have been served to all concerned with reparations and recognitions awarded rightfully to the Marcos HR victims, if I may add.

Hopefully, there would now be a final closure of the Marcos past that divides the Filipino nation up to present.