Supporters of presidential aspirant former Senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, Jr. claim that all cases filed against the Marcoses, including ill-gotten wealth, were dismissed is false.
A post on Facebook group “Bongbong Marcos Alliance for Unity and Progress” on December 4 stated that “DISMISS ANG LAHAT NG CASES NG MGA MARCOS.”
Another post by Facebook page AllWrite stated: “Over a thousand cases have been filed against the Marcoses, claiming fraud, racketeering, looting, malversation of public funds and other crimes. The Philippine government (a superpower) filed these, not certain individuals, and the Marcoses 𝗪𝗢𝗡 them all.” The post uses the hashtags #ProtectMarcosJr #LabanMarcosJr #BringBackMarcos
At least 28,252 and 3,491 users follow the pages of AllWrite and Bongbong Marcos Alliance for Unity and Progress, respectively. These are not new but rehashed claims shared many times on Facebook to boost the presidential bid of Marcos in the 2022 elections.
Their claims that all the cases against the Marcoses were dismissed are false and misleading. The Marcoses won some but not all of the cases filed against them and their cronies in courts here in the country and abroad, including cases on ill-gotten wealth, which were ordered returned to the coffers of the Philippine government.
The late dictator Ferdinand Marcos ruled the Philippines from 1965 up to 1986 when he was toppled by a popular “People’s Power” revolt that forced the then First Family to flee the country. https://www.officialgazette.gov.ph/edsa/
In 1990, former First Lady Imelda Marcos, the mother of Marcos Jr., was acquitted of racketeering and fraud cases in the United States. https://www.nytimes.com/1990/07/03/nyregion/marcos-verdict-marcos-cleared-all-charges-racketeering-fraud-case.html
In June 2021, the anti-graft court Sandiganbayan dismissed a three-decade civil case involving the alleged ill-gotten wealth of the Marcoses and two of their supposed cronies due to insufficiency of evidence. https://cnnphilippines.com/news/2021/7/16/Sandiganbayan-Marcos-family-ill-gotten-wealth.html
The Sandiganbayan has also thrown out a handful of cases involving the Marcos family’s allegedly ill-gotten wealth, one of which was the junked ₱200-billion worth of funds and properties which they allegedly amassed illegally. https://www.cnnphilippines.com/news/2019/12/16/Sandiganbayan-Marcos-ill-gotten-wealth-lose.html
But on the other hand, the Sandiganbayan, rendering a recent setback for the former First Family, ordered the Marcoses in September 2021 to return to the government bank deposits amounting to hundreds of millions in pesos made by the late dictator at the Traders Royal Bank. Various media outlets reported the decision of the anti-graft court’s Second Division for the Marcoses to return the money. The peso-denominated certificates amounted to at least ₱96 million while the dollar-denominated ones totaled to at least $5.43 million. https://www.cnnphilippines.com/news/2021/9/29/sandiganbayan-marcos-ill-gotten-wealth.html
https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1494405/marcos-conduit-bank-for-ill-gotten-wealth-ordered-to-pay-govt
In 2019, the Presidential Commission on Good Governance (PCGG), on its 33rd anniversary, announced that it has recovered a total of P172.66 billion in ill-gotten wealth since its creation in 1986 up to 2018. The PCGG was formed to recover public funds that the Marcoses, their relatives and business associates used to amass personal and business fortunes. https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/news/nation/686472/pcgg-says-it-has-recovered-over-p172-b-worth-of-ill-gotten-wealth-in-32-years/story/
The Supreme Court also ruled at least three separate times against the Marcos family’s wealth and ordered them forfeited in favor of the government, which was reported by various domestic and international media outlets.
In 2018, Imelda Marcos was convicted by the Sandiganbayan for seven graft cases filed against her by state prosecutors between 1991 and 1995, in connection with the diversion of at least $200 million in public funds to private foundations in Switzerland, which Marcos established while she was Metro Manila governor, assemblywoman and minister of human settlements during her husband’s strongman rule. https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1512744/what-now-sc-protesters-bring-up-2018-imelda-conviction
She was sentenced to six to 11 years in prison for each count of graft. She appealed her conviction before the Supreme Court and is out of jail on a bail of P150,000. (Bong S. Sarmiento / MindaNews)
(This fact-check piece was produced with the support of Internews’ Philippine Fact-Checker Incubator Project.)
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