Now’s the time: Recover Marcos loot vs pandemic

One Saturday morning in 1972 Filipinos woke up to eerie dead air. There was nothing on TV but color bars or on radio but hiss, no newspapers at the usual stands. Late the night before on orders of President Ferdinand Marcos paramilitary units had padlocked all media outlets. Opposition, labor and student leaders, university professors and journalists were rounded up and imprisoned without formal charges. A special target was ABS-CBN. The first lady Imelda Romualdez Marcos was irked with the network’s Lopez family-owners for seating the First Couple not at the head but secondary table in a banquet months prior attended by European royalties. There were no exceptions, though. When guards at the Iglesia ni Cristo cathedral in Quezon City refused to yield the radio station, the assault troops moved them down. Two newspapers owned by Marcos business cronies were closed (but only for a few weeks). Schools were suspended indefinitely. Public assemblies were prohibited. Abolished were Congress and the Vice Presidency, held then by the ABS-CBN’s younger brother who had bankrolled their 1969 electoral win.

Only the following Monday did Marcos explain on government radio-TV why he had imposed martial law and suspended civil liberties. “The communists are out to burn the City of Manila,” he claimed. A mock ambush of his defense minister’s limo was staged to dramatize the “threat”.

Operation of ABS-CBN was transferred to Marcos propagandists. Meralco, which the Lopezes controlled, forcibly was purchased by Marcos for P1 and handed over to Imelda’s brother. The latter took over the Lopez newspaper publishing too. Patriarch Eugenio Lopez had no choice but to accede: his son Eugenio Jr. was being held by Marcos behind bars, on trumped up charges of attempting to assassinate him.

People asked why Marcos was dividing the nation at a time when unity direly was needed. A typhoon had devastated most of Luzon three months before, and earthquakes had struck Mindanao and other islands. Filipinos were reeling from failed croppings and economic slump.

Marcos said he wanted to build a “new society” free of oligarchs. He only worsened the old one. The old rich he replaced with own cronies. One-party rule was set up. Through media censorship and curtailment of dissent, thought control reigned.

With no checks and balance, absolute power corrupted absolutely. Marcos and Imelda began to amass ill-gotten wealth. Cronies gave them shares of stock and behest loans from government banks. Prime estates were bought up in Baguio, Manila, Ilocos, Leyte, even in America and Europe. Gold bars were taken from mines and the Central Bank. Imelda went on multimillion-dollar shopping sprees for jewelry, apparel, shoes, watches, handbags, and art masterpieces. Loose change in the hundreds of millions were deposited in Swiss banks. About 30 billion in 1980s dollars were plundered – worth multiples today.

* * * The prologue is the same to any recollection of Marcos’ martial law and the ABS-CBN side story. It is the return of Imelda to political power coupled with government’s failure to recover bulk of the stolen wealth. In countless interviews Imelda does not deny the hoard; she even boasts that the world will benefit from it someday.

The government is starved for cash to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. Hundreds of billions of pesos are needed to detect, test, isolate, treat all suspected infections, then restart the economy, lest millions perish.

Is it not time to flush out the Marcos wealth “to benefit” Filipinos and mankind? It can be done. For starters, two high administration officials are Imelda lawyers. Too, evidence lies in the vaults of the Banko Sentral and in the archives of the San Jose Mercury News, California. Stouthearted leaders just need to make the first step.

* * * “The ruthless will vanish, the mockers will disappear, and all who have an eye for evil will be cut down – those who with a word make someone out to be guilty, who ensnare the defender in court and with false testimony deprive the innocent of justice.” – Isaiah 29:20-21

Dear Father, please do not allow evil to reign in this world. Please protect us from those whom You have given positions of authority but instead used their powers to mistreat others. Do not allow anyone or anything to prevail that attacks our finances, our health, our minds, our relationships, our basic freedoms, and our joy. We ask and pray through Jesus Christ, Your Son and our Savior. Amen. * * * Catch Sapol radio show, Saturdays, 8 to 10 a.m., DWIZ (882-AM).

My book “Exposés: Investigative Reporting for Clean Government” is available on Amazon: Exposés: Investigative Reporting for Clean Government

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