A former first lady of the Philippines and current congresswoman has been found guilty on 7 counts of corruption.
An arrest warrant has been issued for Imelda Marcos. The 89-year-old did not attend the court hearing and has yet to issue a response.
Marcos was found guilty of illegally funneling about 200 million dollars to Swiss foundations in the 1970s and 80s.
She was sentenced to 6 to 11 years in prison for each count. A court prosecutor says she might be able to avoid jail time if she appeals.
Marcos has served 3 terms in Congress. She is also registered to run in an election next year to succeed her daughter as governor in a northern Philippine province.
Marcos became famous for a huge collection of shoes, jewelry and artwork after her husband and former dictator Ferdinand Marcos was ousted in 1986 in what was known as the ”people power” revolution.
She was able to make a political comeback but has also faced a number of other corruption cases.
She was convicted in the 90s but later cleared by the Supreme Court.
Imelda Marcos shakes hands with the public in Paranaque, Philippines, south of Manila on March 2, 2016.Marlo Cueto—Pacific Press/LightRocket/Getty Images
(MANILA, Philippines) — A Philippine court found former first lady Imelda Marcos guilty of graft and ordered her arrest Friday in a rare conviction among many corruption cases that she’s likely to appeal to avoid jail and losing her seat in Congress.
The special anti-graft Sandiganbayan court sentenced Marcos, 89, to serve 6 to 11 years in prison for each of the seven counts of violating an anti-corruption law when she illegally funneled about $200 million to Swiss foundations in the 1970s as Metropolitan Manila governor.
Neither Marcos nor anyone representing her attended Friday’s court hearing. No one has issued any reaction on her behalf although her lawyers were expected to appeal the ruling, which anti-Marcos activists and human rights victims welcomed as long overdue.
The court disqualified Marcos from holding public office, but she can remain a member of the powerful House of Representatives while appealing the decision. Her congressional term will end next year but she has registered to run to replace her daughter as governor of northern Ilocos Norte province.
“I was jumping up and down in joy in disbelief,” said former Commission on Human Rights chairwoman Loretta Ann Rosales, who was among many activists locked up after Imelda’s husband, former President Ferdinand Marcos, declared martial law in the Philippines in 1972.
Rosales said the decision was a huge setback to efforts by the Marcos family to revise history by denying many of the atrocities under the dictatorship, and urged Filipinos to fight all threats against democracy and civil liberties.
Imelda Marcos’ husband was ousted by an army-backed “people power” revolt in 1986. He died in self-exile in Hawaii in 1989 but his widow and children returned to the Philippines. Most have been elected to public offices in an impressive political comeback.
Government prosecutor Ryan Quilala told reporters that Marcos and her husband opened and managed Swiss foundations in violation of the Philippine Constitution, using aliases in a bid to hide stolen funds. The Marcoses have been accused of plundering the government’s coffers amid crushing poverty. They have denied any wrongdoing and have successfully fought many other corruption cases.
Imelda Marcos was acquitted Friday in three other cases, which were filed in 1991 and took nearly three decades of trial by several judges and prosecutors. She was once convicted of a graft case in 1993, but the Supreme Court later cleared her of any wrongdoing.
President Rodrigo Duterte, an ally of the Marcoses, said last year the Marcos family had indicated a willingness to return a still-unspecified amount of money and “a few gold bars” to help ease budget deficits. He indicated the family still denied that the assets had been stolen as alleged by political opponents.
Ferdinand Marcos had placed the Philippines under martial rule a year before his term was to expire. He padlocked Congress, ordered the arrest of political rivals and left-wing activists and ruled by decree. His family is said to have amassed an estimated $5 billion to $10 billion while he was in power.
A Hawaii court found Marcos liable for human rights violations and awarded $2 billion from his estate to compensate more than 9,000 Filipinos who filed a lawsuit against him for torture, incarceration, extrajudicial killings and disappearances.
Duterte has acknowledged that Imee Marcos, the couple’s daughter and a provincial governor, backed his presidential candidacy.
Almost 400 Martial Law victims on Monday were given the first tranche of their compensation for the suffering they endured during the regime of late dictator Ferdinand Marcos.
A report by GMA News’ Marisol Abdurahman on 24 Oras showed the claimants, most of whom are already senior citizens, queuing up for their compensation at the Human Rights Victims’ Claims Board (HRVCB) in UP Diliman.
Despite their age however, many of them said money cannot make them forget the ordeal they went through during the Martial Law years.
Among them is 68-year-old James Umadhay, who was imprisoned for 22 years.
“Nilublob ako sa inidoro, binugbog, at ang pinakamasakit yung 110 volts pinasok sa ari ko,” Umadhay said.
91-year-old Angelina Arevalo, for her part, said she lost a child and her husband during the Marcos regime.
“Two years bago namin nalaman na nakakulong na pala siya. They keep on denying na wala siya dun,” Arevalo said.
Political analyst and Martial Law victim Mon Casiple said they only received partial closure with the compensation since the Marcos family has yet to recognize the atrocities committed by the late dictator.
“Isang partial closure doon sa mga nangyari nung panahon ni Marcos. Partial kasi yung Marcos family ay hindi kumikilala ng mga kasalanan at responsibilidad ni Ferdinand E. Marcos mismo,” Casiple said.
HRVCB chairperson Lina Sarmiento said the initial batch of more than 4,000 claimants approved by law received a minimum compensation of P12,500.
“Ang pinakamababa ay P12,500 kasi yun yung kalahati ng value ng one point. Very challenging itong aming pinagdaanan kasi lumobo nga ng sobra,” Sarmiento said.
Not everyone who went to HRVCB on Monday received their compensation, including 85-year-old Nertrudes Catotocan.
Asked if she was informed that she will receive her claim, Catotocan replied: “Hindi naman sinabi.”
The HRVCB targets to finish processing the claims of all Martial Law victims by 2018.
‘Burying the dictator in the Libingan ng mga Bayani will not heal our wounded country,’ Jesuit groups say
MARCOS FAMILY. Former first lady Imelda Marcos (2nd from the right) and her children weep on September 9, 1993, during a public eulogy for Ferdinand Marcos in Batac, Philippines. Photo by Romeo Gacad/AFP
MANILA, Philippines – Groups linked to the Jesuits, the religious order running the Ateneo de Manila University, issued a statement rejecting a hero’s burial for the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos.
“Burying the dictator in the Libingan ng mga Bayani (Heroes’ Cemetery) buries human dignity by legitimizing the massive violations of human and civil rights, especially of the right to life, that took place under his regime,” the Jesuit groups said in a statement Thursday, August 18.
“Burying the dictator in the Libingan ng mga Bayani will not heal our wounded country,” they added, rebutting President Rodrigo Duterte’s assertion that a hero’s burial for Marcos will bring “healing” for the Philippines.
The statement was originally signed by the Institute of Social Order (ISO), the John J. Carroll Institute on Church and Social Issues (JJICSI), and Simbahang Lingkod ng Bayan (SLB).
JJICSI and SLB began during the turbulent Marcos years.
JJICSI was born in 1984 to address the need for options in the face of “the already desperate situation” during the Marcos regime, a write-up on its website said.
The other signatory, ISO, was established in 1947 and is involved in “promoting the liberation of the marginalized sectors in society.”
Duterte and the Jesuits
The statement of ISO, JJICSI, and SLB is open for more signatures of groups associated with the Jesuits, formally known as the Society of Jesus.
The Society of Jesus is the largest male religious order in the Catholic Church. The order is known for its schools around the world.
The Jesuits run several Ateneo schools in the Philippines – in Cagayan, Davao, Manila, Naga, Iloilo, Cebu, and Zamboanga.
Duterte himself studied at the Ateneo de Davao.
Duterte, whose father served as a Cabinet member of the late dictator, wants a hero’s burial for Marcos.
The President said Marcos deserves a hero’s burial because he is a soldier and a former president, and this is supposedly allowed under Philippine laws. Three petitions have been filed before the Supreme Court seeking to stop the burial, anchored on existing laws and the 1987 Constitution.
Hero’s burial ‘buries justice’
Jesuit groups, however, listed other arguments against Marcos’ burial at the Libingan ng mga Bayani:
“Burying the dictator in the Libingan ng mga Bayani buries truth by perpetuating the myth of Marcos’ achievements as a leader, distorting the valuable lessons of history that we pass on to our young, and confusing them about what constitutes heroism.”
“Burying the dictator in the Libingan ng mga Bayani buries justice by justifying the shameless corruption of the dictator, his family, and the oligarchy of cronies he created. It violates the moral values we cherish as a nation by rewarding wrong and making it seem right.”
“Burying the dictator in the Libingan ng mga Bayani buries solidarity by denying the pain and anguish of the many victims of human rights violations and their families, the misery of the poor who suffered most under Marcos’ development policies, and the sacrifices of those who fought to restore the country’s fallen democratic institutions.”
“Burying the dictator in the Libingan ng mga Bayani buries peace by erasing the memory of the violence that his regime inflicted on our nation.”
“Burying the dictator in the Libingan ng mga Bayani buries genuine empowerment by legitimizing the concentration of power in a single leader and the suppression of democratic rights and participation under his regime, and by negating the triumph of the empowered popular movement that unseated him.”
The original signatories told others in Jesuit communities: “We ask you, our sisters and brothers, to consider our position on this issue. And if this position resonates with you, we enjoin you to unite with us in calling upon President Duterte to reconsider his decision and find a resolution to this issue that will bring about genuine reconciliation with justice for all.”
Like the Jesuit signatories, the Catholic Educational Association of the Philippines (CEAP) earlier opposed the burial of Marcos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani.
Composed of more than 1,200 Catholic schools, CEAP said, “He was not a hero.”
On August 24, the Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments on consolidated petitions against a hero’s burial for Marcos.
Donald Trump’s chief campaign strategist Paul Manafort tells Politico Magazine that the money he received from Ferdinand Marcos’ allies was disclosed to the US government
LINKS TO MARCOS. Paul Manafort checks the teleprompters before Donald Trump’s speech at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, DC, on April 27, 2016. File photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images/AFP
MANILA, Philippines – Thirty years after the fall of Ferdinand Marcos, the international political consultant he hired to help him cling to power is still very much active – this time, as the chief campaign strategist of US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.
A Politico Magazine report published in June 2016 revealed more details about Paul Manafort’s links to the Philippines’ late dictator – just one of the several controversial foreign leaders he worked for.
According to Politico Magazine, a front group for Marcos agreed to pay Manafort’s firm a whopping $950,000 a year.
Politico revealed that “Manafort worked more closely than previously known with Marcos and his wife, Imelda,” both in Manila and in Washington, during the 1980s.
According to the magazine, Manafort and his associates advised the Marcoses on electoral strategy, and downplayed concerns in the US about human rights abuses, corruption, and poll fraud in the Philippines.
Documents also showed that the strongman “earmarked huge sums of cash for [Ronald] Reagan’s 1980 and 1984 campaigns – as much as $57 million, according to one claim made to Philippine investigators.”
But Politico reported that without a concrete paper trail, it’s unclear how much money Manafort received, or whether supposed political contributions did end up in the Reagan campaign.
Manafort, for his part, told Politico that the money he got from Marcos’ allies had been disclosed to the US Justice Department, and that rumors that he accepted – and hid – millions of dollars are false.
“It was circulating way back when, when people were out to just pass rumors and things about me. It’s old stuff that never had any legs anywhere,” Politico quoted Manafort as saying. “It’s totally fiction.”
But pressed for clarification, Trump’s top strategist refused to elaborate on the role he played during Marcos’ final years in power.
“When Politico asked him to describe his relationship with Marcos,” the magazine said, “he laughed and said, ‘I’ve got to go.'”
