Solons to PNoy: Finish what your mother started, continue hunt for Marcos wealth

GMA News January 2, 2013 2:25pm

“Finish what your mother started.”

This was how two progressive party-list lawmakers challenged President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III to continue the hunt for the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos' embezzled wealth after the head of the commission in-charge of the search said his agency will already quit the chase.

Bayan Muna party-list Rep. Neri Colmenares said the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) should not back down on the pursuit for Marcos' supposed ill-gotten wealth, despite financial and political challenges expressed by the agency's current head, Andres Bautista.

“Ang leksyon na matutunan kung ihihinto ang paghanap ng Marcos wealth is that crime pays and if you steal big, you can get away with it,” Colmenares said in a text message.

On Tuesday, Bautista said the PCGG is set to wind down its near-30-year efforts to recover the $10 billion allegedly amassed by the Marcos family during the late dictator's two decades in power, despite the fact that more than half of the amount is still missing.

The PCGG chairman cited limited financing from the government, the high cost of litigation and the return of Marcos' wife and children to power as primary reasons why his office will terminate the search.

The PCGG was created in 1986 by the late President Corazon Aquino—the incumbent's mother—after she was catapulted into the presidency by a popular mass uprising known as the “EDSA Revolution” which toppled Marcos' dictatorship.

'Bautista should quit'

Colmenares, who was jailed and tortured during the Marcos regime, said Aquino's government owes it to the human rights victims during the Martial Law years to continue to search for the ill-gotten wealth.

“Dapat ibalik ang nakaw na yaman sa mamamayan. Dapat i-prosecute ang PCGG officials and prosecutors na nagpahina o nagpatalo sa mga kaso,” the party-list lawmaker said.

ACT Teachers party-list Rep. Antonio Tinio, for his part, said Bautista should just resign if the PCGG chairperson is no longer inclined to perform his mandate.

“Bautista should quit his job as PCGG chair since it appears that he does not have the desire and will to pursue the Marcos ill-gotten wealth,” Tinio said in a separate text message.

He likewise urged Aquino to exercise political will and make a categorical commitment to continue searching for the Marcos wealth.

“The stakes are much higher—recovery of the Marcos ill-gotten wealth, justice for the Filipino people and setting the historical records straight. The onus on Pnoy is to finish the task his mother started in 1986 but failed to complete,” Tinio said.

Colmenares, for his part, vowed to block any moves in Congress to dissolve the PCGG. “Haharangin ng Bayan Muna kapag may nag-file ng bill abandoning the pursuit of the Marcos ill-gotten wealth,” he said.

Leyte Rep. Sergio Apostol already filed a bill to abolish the PCGG in January last year. It is currently pending before the House committee on government reorganization. — BM, GMA News