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987 billion dollars. 

The late dictator Ferdinand Marcos stashed almost a trillion dollars in a single bank in Brussels, Belgium. Decades later, the Marcoses continue to deny all wrongdoing.  

“I only buy beauty,” said Imelda Marcos. However, there is nothing beautiful about plunder. 

The $987 billion figure is not hearsay. British Journalist Simon Reeve saw those documents first hand. A clip of the iron butterfly handing him the documents herself during an interview in 2009 went viral. 

As Reeve was shooting his documentary “Manila to Mindanao,” he had the chance to talk to some of the country’s most famous figures, including the corrupt former first lady. 

Imelda was known for her extravagance during the height of her husband’s power. She collected paintings from the greatest artists and wore dresses made by top designers. 

“Filipinos want beauty. I have to look beautiful, so that the poor Filipinos will have a star to look at from their slums,” she argued. But her displays of wealth put their finances into question: how could they afford everything she was showing off? 

“My husband was the lawyer of gold mines and also a gold trader,” said Imelda in defense of their wealth.  When asked whether she saw the money she used to buy her lavish things as her husband’s or the people’s, she answered: “I knew it was his money because I saw this gold already in his home.”

This defense is the main feature of many conspiracy theories on the internet. In one theory, this gold came from the “Tallano Royal Family” that apparently owned the Philippines until the mid-18th century. There is no proof of this so-called royal family, nor the general claim that Marcos had tons of gold before rising to power. 

As Reeves put it: “That has always been Imelda’s line. Her husband, Ferdinand Marcos, was a ‘staggeringly successful investor in gold. He made billions. We didn’t use the Filipino treasury as our own personal cash machine and if you think we did, prove it. And so far, despite hundreds of court cases, no one really has.”

“They found no skeletons in my closet,” said Imelda. 

The Bones Behind the Beauty

But they did find skeletons. 

Legal teams have chipped away at their image of perfection for decades, punching holes and exposing the billions they have siphoned from the country’s coffers. Even the Guinness Book of World Records recognizes these skeletons, giving Marcos the award for the “Greatest Robbery of a Government.” 

The PCGG has recovered over ₱171 billion since the agency was first created, scattered across bank accounts in different countries under different names. The Marcoses have pushed for the dismissal of the cases against them. Nevertheless, the PCGG has had several victories over the years. 

In 1990, a Swiss Federal Supreme Court case found that the Marcos family used front organizations to stash $356 million in Swiss banks. This was eventually granted to the Philippine government in 2003 when it was already worth $658 million. 

Meanwhile, in 2014, Supreme Court Associate Justice Efren de la Cruz wrote the decision ordering the Marcoses to return the Malacañang Jewelry Collection, valued between $110,055 and $153,089. This is less valuable than the two previous collections called the Roumeliotes and Hawaii collections. 

The Philippine government is planning to auction off these jewels, with the funds going to the national treasury. 

Imelda’s most notorious loss is the 2018 Sandiganbayan decision, where the court found her guilty of seven counts of graft for creating private foundations in Switzerland to hide $220 million. She was given a 77-year sentence but was allowed to post bail during her appeal. After three years, however, the former first lady has still served no jail time. 

On September 24, this year, the Sandiganbayan 2nd Division ordered the Marcoses to return hundreds of millions in bank certificates issued during the 1970s from Traders Royal Bank. This amounts to ₱96 million in peso certificates and $5.43 million in dollar certificates, roughly ₱280 million in the current exchange rate. These are only base amounts, as the Sandiganbayan has also ordered the Marcoses to pay 12% per year beginning from 1993 until it is all eventually paid off. 

Billions more are locked up in court cases, blocked at every turn by the Marcos family’s well-funded legal team. Still, the Marcoses can no longer claim innocence. 

The veil is broken, and they can no longer  hide the skeletons in their closet. 

Luster and Light

Despite the glaring evidence, the Marcoses continue to paint a distorted image of the Martial Law years, and the late dictator’s namesake is running for the highest post in the land. The Marcos family’s biggest enemy is not the Liberal Party, nor the PCGG tasked with recovering their hidden wealth — but the truth itself.

Emilio Jacinto once wrote in his poem Ningning at Liwanag: “Ang ningning ay nakasisilaw at nakasisira ng paningin. Ang liwanag ay kinakailangan ng mata, upang mapagwari ang buong katunayan ng mga bagay-bagay.” 

This is what the Marcoses have always done. They run from the light, knowing that it will expose them, and instead attempt to dazzle the masses with the luster of perverted and grim “beauty.”

The Marcos regime kept its power because of its extravagance. Massive infrastructure and sweeping promises of a new society dazzled Filipinos, distracting them from corruption and impunity. 

In the same way, Bongbong Marcos’ campaign revolves around the image of a “golden age.”  He continues to keep his supporters in the dark, blatantly distorting history to keep his base loyal. 

“BBM will be a worse dictator than Marcos and Duterte. BBM himself benefitted from and supported his father’s authoritarian rule. He does not recognize the measures taken by his father as gross violations of human rights. He and the Marcos clique glorify the late strongman’s violent measures as necessary to obtain and preserve power,” said the Campaign Against the Return of the Marcoses and Martial Law.

There is nothing beautiful about “Marcos money.” They can show off valuable art and pull bank certificates from journalists all they want.  The Filipinos know that bodies are buried beneath their ill-gotten billions, and corpses in gold coffins stink just the same. 

The Marcoses have preserved power by dazzling and confusing the Filipino people, using their stolen billions to support other illusionists like Duterte to keep their trick alive. The Filipino people must refuse to be hypnotized any longer, because when everyone sees the truth, Marcos, Duterte, and everyone who hides behind lies and deceit stand no chance. 

Featured image courtesy of AsiaOne.