WEEKLY SELECTION/PHILIPPINES: Despite Legal Win, No Accountability from Marcoses

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Analysis - Johanna Son

MANILA, Mar 6 1999 (IPS) - A court settlement between Filipino human rights victims of the Ferdinand Marcos regime and the Marcos heirs is a rare legal victory, but whether it answers the need for justice is quite another matter.

Therein lies the irony in last week’s announcement that a compromise settlement of 150 million U.S. dollars had been reached in a class suit lodged before a Hawaii court by nearly 10,000 Filipinos.

By any measure, the compromise was a major achievement that should encourage other countries in their efforts to recover funds salted away by corrupt leaders and pursue legal action against rights abuses.

The Hawaii suit makes legal history: it is the first time class action has been used on behalf of alleged victims of human rights.

It also represents the biggest success Filipinos have had — since Marcos fell from power in a civilian-backed military revolt 13 years ago — in getting any semblance of justice and compensation from his heirs.

But the taste of victory has been soured by the insistence of the Marcoses’ heirs that the former president, who died in Hawaii in 1989, was never guilty of any human rights abuses.

A provision in the compromise accord, which must be ratified and submitted to the court by Mar 30 to take effect, says the Marcos estate is “released fully” from any charges of human rights abuses.

“This just isn’t true. Let us not twist history for 30 pieces of silver,” said human rights lawyer Rene Saguisag, also a former senator and former anti-Marcos critic.

“No wonder the Marcoses have become bolder and more arrogant. They could use this agreement and brag that no criminal and civil cases have been filed against them,” he argued.

Critics, including a number of the human rights victims themselves involved in the Hawaii suit, want the offending paragraph releasing the Marcoses from any liability, stricken out of the document on the compromise.

More than legalese, the notion that the Marcoses are agreeing to settle but not admitting guilt and showing any repentance grates on many Filipinos.

Recently, Ferdinand Marcos Jr, the late dictator’s only son who is now governor of the family’s home province of Ilocos Norte, derided human rights victims as golddiggers.

Far from being victims of human rights, he said the plaintiffs were “victims of their own greed”. Added Marcos: “They don’t want justice, they want money.”

Indeed, the Marcoses’ American lawyer, James Paul Linn, has been quoted as saying: “The Marcos family agreed to do this settlement with no admission of guilt but in the spirit of peace, reconciliation and unity of the Filipino people.”

The compromise was reached in connection with a 1995 verdict by a jury in a Hawaii district court, which awarded 1.9 billion U.S. dollars in damages to the plaintiffs, consisting of those tortured or summarily killed by Marcos government agents, and their heirs.

The 150 million dollars will come from the 590 million dollars seized from the Marcoses’ Swiss bank deposits. This amount had been turned over to the Philippine government and put in escrow, to be divided among the victims in the event of a final judgment or settlement.

But the road to implementation of the deal is not easy, or short. The compromise has to be approved among othters by President Joseph Estrada, the Sandiganbayan graft court and the U.S. district court.

Before that, the human rights plaintiffs have to formally signify approval or rejection of the compromise. It does not help that there are several clashing groups of claimants, some of which reject the compromise.

Rod Domingo, lead Filipino counsel for the plaintiffs, says the legal team will seek the deletion of the clause that exonerates the Marcoses.

He says the Marcoses’ insertion of the clause releasing them from all liability was immaterial: “What is true and undeniable is that the Marcos estate has been found by a final judgment to have violated the human rights of 10,000 Filipinos.”

Loretta Anne Rosales, head of one group of claimants among the 10,000 human rights plaintiffs, said “it is not a question of being fair or of getting too little”, but categorically assigning moral and legal responsibility on the Marcoses.

This however might prove elusive, since the Marcos family has never admitted guilt.

The Marcoses have also been emboldened by a string of legal victories at home that have resulted in more than 20 graft cases against them being thrown out by the courts.

Imelda Marcos, the late president’s widow, was found guilty of corruption in one case in 1993. But the conviction, which would have sentenced her to more than 20 years in prison, was reversed on appeal by the Philippines’ Supreme Court last year.

Ironically, the Marcos family has obtained these favourable decisions under a democratic political system set up after Marcos’ ouster — and used freer political space in place since then to run and get elected to public office.

Meantime, the Hawaii settlement — now in limbo due to political and legal objections — has become an impressive show of legal ability but as yet an unproven means of holding a dictatorial regime morally accountability for its abuses.

Not a few voices here are saying it is time for closure on the Marcos chapter, with the Hawaii court settlement coming soon after Filipinos marked earlier this month the 13th anniversary of the ‘People’s Power Revolution’ that ousted Marcos.

But to many of the human rights plaintiffs — and the regime’s other nameless victims — the question is whether they must choose between a legal document and some money, and an apology from the Marcoses that is unlikely to ever come.