How u can vote for this MAN??? having guts to insulted human right victims Senator Bongbong Marcos confirmed he had a direct hand in trying to withdraw US$213M from a Swiss bank in 1986 February 25, 2012 My exclusive interview with Sen. Bongbong Marcos By Raïssa Robles Ocampo, it seems, forgot that Bongbong Marcos had called human rights victims like himself greedy back in February 24, 1999, during the 13th year celebration of the Edsa 1 People Power. Bongbong Marcos insulted all his father’s human rights victims whom he noted were squabbling among themselves because: Basta’t may pag-asang magkapera, nagaaway-away na sila” (As long as there’s a chance of making money, they’ll fight among themselves). I am posting at the end in full the news item entitled – Bongbong: Apology? They only want money In reviving his political career, Bongbong Marcos has successfully detached himself from the sins of his father. Today I’m offering readers the proof why Filipino voters shouldn’t let him do that. Because the truth is, Sen. Bongbong Marcos colluded with his father then to hide the family’s ill-gotten wealth and he continues to this day to hide this from the Filipino people. And the proof came from what Sen. Bongbong Marcos himself told me in a public forum held by the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines (FOCAP) last year, just before the 25th anniversary of Edsa 1 People Power. Sen. Ferdinand Bongbong Marcos seems to have trouble with his tie. Behind him to the right is businessman Lance Gokongwei - PHOTO by Raissa Robles I wrote about this last year for my newspaper South China Morning Post. Now I’d like to share with you the answers that Sen. Bongbong Marcos gave to my questions during the FOCAP forum. I took pictures of him, too. First, a brief background When Sen. Bongbong Marcos fled from Malacañang Palace with his family, their loot hidden worldwide was estimated to run from US$2 billion to up to US$10 billion. Only a fraction of that has been recovered by the Philippine government. I intentionally use the word “loot” because no less than the Swiss Federal Supreme Court used the phrase “of criminal origin” to describe the Marcos Swiss deposits in Credit Suisse bank when it issued a ruling to award this money to the Philippine government. Here’s how the Swiss Federal Department of Justice and Police website explained the Swiss court ruling on the Marcoses’ deposits in Credit Suisse: The Marcos case began in 1986 when the Federal Council ordered bank accounts to be frozen. In 1990, the Swiss Federal Supreme Court approved the handover to the Philippines of bank documents relating to the Marcos family, but ruled that the actual return of assets would be conditional upon a final and absolute judgment by a Philippine court. In 1997, the Court established that the majority of the Marcos foundation assets were of criminal origin and permitted their transfer to a escrow account in Manila, even though no Philippine court ruling had yet been issued. It is the same Credit Suisse deposits that I had asked Sen. Bongbong Marcos about last year during the FOCAP forum. I asked him whether he had a direct hand in trying to withdraw US$213 million dollars from Credit Suisse. The forum was well attended and had as other forum speakers Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona, Supreme Court administrator Midas Marquez, Cebu Pacific CEO Lance Gokongwei, Pete Troilo (executive director of the private think tank Pacific Strategies and Assessments), senior businessmen and diplomats from various embassies. I wrote an article on the matter last year for my newspaper SCMP but didn’t get around to writing one for my blog because it is such a complicated story. I will try to tell it now as simply as I can. Why am I raking up an incident of 26 years ago? It’s a legitimate question. Here are my answers. First, Sen. Bongbong Marcos told me during the FOCAP forum that he still intends to pursue a compromise settlement with the present government of Benigno Aquino III: We’ve been pursuing a compromise settlement since 1986. We will continue to do so. Second, he knows where other Marcos deposits are hidden outside the country. Why else would his Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth (SALN) and that of his mother skyrocket so much even if the family has no business empire like the Gokongwei or Sy tycoons. Third, Sen. Bongbong Marcos and his two other siblings were named the “beneficiaries” of various foreign deposit accounts held by dummy foundations set up by their parents. Unfortunately for them, this mode of hiding the loot was discovered because they left some of the bank documents in Malacañang Palace when they fled. Others were later turned over by the Swiss Federal Court to the Philippine government. Still, the Philippine government has no idea how many more foreign deposit accounts are still out there. And fourth, Sen. Bongbong Marcos’ mother Imelda really wants to put another Ferdinand Marcos inside Malacañang Palace. Given all these, they seem to have the money to bankroll a presidential campaign. Just think, in the last election, the family funded three electoral campaigns. My Q & A with Sen. Bongbong Marcos It was during the the FOCAP forum when Sen. Bongbong Marcos confirmed to me that he was not an innocent abroad but was as much a part of the plot to hide the loot. Senator Ferdinand Bongbong Marcos replies to my questions during the January 2011 FOCAP prospects forum. Beside him is Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona - PHOTO by Raissa Robles I asked him about the events that occurred shortly after his family fled Manila in February 1986 and ended up exiled in Hickam Air Base, Hawaii. What happened in Hawaii in 1986 After the Marcoses fled and the new government of President Corazon Aquino found papers in Malacañang Palace pointing to the Marcoses’ Swiss bank deposits, two men took it upon themselves to try a sting operation on the ousted dictator. They wanted to get a portion of the Swiss assets without going the complicated legal route. The two men were then Colonel Jose “JoeAl” Almonte and Micheal Cesar de Guzman or Mike – a Filipino who had acquired a small bank in Austria called the Export-Finanzierungsbank or EFBA. Mike, according to an affidavit he executed afterward, personally knew Bongbong Marcos. Mike had been Bongbong Marcos’ tour guide during the latter’s 1982 visit in Vienna and had proven he could deliver. Mike had personally facilitated the purchase of two expensive Austrian cars for Bongbong Marcos and his sister Irene Sen. Bongbong Marcos, however, told me that was not the case. He said he blamed the United States government for the unilateral freeze on their Swiss deposits. Sen. Bongbong Marcos confirmed to me during the FOCAP forum that on March 22, 1986 or weeks after the family fled Manila, Mike visited them in their quarters at Hickam Air Base. They were de facto prisoners on the island since the US government barred them from leaving Hawaii. This is how I asked Sen. Bongbong about the events that transpired then between Mike and him. I taped my Q and & with Sen. Bongbong Marcos on a digital recorder and have transcribed them below: RR: If I close my eyes I hear your father. The timbre of your voice is the same. And your father’s voice was a very good voice. . Bongbong Marcos: Well, thank you.ofcourse i am his son as the saying “LIKE FATHER LIKE SON AS IN KUNG ANO GINAWA NYA GAGAWIN KO RIN!!!
Posted on: Wed, 10 Sep 2014 11:53:35 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015