PCGG seeks to raise P 1.2B from sale in May of seized Marcos assets

Despite another Marcos assuming the presidency in July, the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) plans to raise this May around P1.2 billion from the sale of ill-gotten assets of the Marcos family and their cronies.

In an email on Tuesday, John Agbayani, chair of the PCGG, told the Inquirer that despite Ferdinand Marcos Jr. succeeding President Duterte by the middle of this year, the PCGG would continue to dispose of Marcos-related properties to generate government revenues.

“The privatization or disposal of recovered assets is part of the PCGG’s statutory mandate under Executive Order No. 1, series of 1986,” Agbayani pointed out.

Agbayani said the 17 recovered Marcos assets worth P1.2 billion to be sold this month were approved by the interagency Privatization Council, chaired by the Department of Finance (DOF), on March 24. Agbayani, however, did not specify these properties lined up for disposition.

No roadblocks

Asked by the Inquirer if there were any roadblocks or pending procedures that the PCGG first needed to untangle to push through with its upcoming disposition activities, Agbayani replied: “There is none.”

The latest Bureau of the Treasury (BTr) figures had shown that the PCGG was unable to contribute to the government’s privatization efforts from 2021 up to the first quarter of 2022.

From 1990 to 2020, the PCGG raised a total of P120.46 billion in additional revenues from the sale of Marcos-related ill-gotten wealth.

Gov’t finances

Back in 2017, Mr. Duterte said the Marcoses were open to returning part of their up to $10 billion in ill-gotten wealth, including gold bars, to supposedly help the government manage its finances.

At the start of the Duterte administration in 2016, the PCGG already recovered from the Marcos family and their cronies a total of P170 billion —from Swiss bank deposits, shares of stock, real estate, paintings, as well as jewelry.

For instance, the PCGG had said three Marcos jewelry collections, dubbed Hawaii, Malacañang and Roumeliotes, had been estimated by auction houses Christie’s and Sotheby’s to be worth a total of at least P1 billion.

It was then President Corazon Aquino who formed the PCGG shortly after the ouster of the elder Marcos through the People Power Revolution in February 1986. Dominguez was Cory Aquino’s agriculture and environment minister.

But the Duterte administration earlier on considered abolishing the PCGG, under a wider plan to downsize the executive branch, as proposed by then budget chief and now Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Governor Benjamin Diokno,

The DOF had nonetheless assured the public that the government will continue to dispose of the recovered Marcos-related assets once cases were settled.