==============================================
The analysis of the definition of a "caregiver" will lead us to a
better understanding of why Filipina domestic maids are considered
"modern-day slaves" in Canada, in the Middle East, in Hong Kong, and around the world, read analysis here http://filipina-nannies-caregivers.blogspot.ca/2013/05/montreal-aafq-association-des-aides.html.
See our FACEBOOK for Filipina Nannies - https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100006253052815
Our non-profit blog was inspired by a Filipina domestic from the Middle East who left her newborn baby – with placenta still attached – at the Bahrain Gulf Air airplane toilet - upon landing in Manila, read her story here http://filipina-nannies-caregivers.blogspot.ca/2013/05/this-blog-was-inspired-by-filipina.htm .
See our FACEBOOK for Filipina Nannies - https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100006253052815
Our non-profit blog was inspired by a Filipina domestic from the Middle East who left her newborn baby – with placenta still attached – at the Bahrain Gulf Air airplane toilet - upon landing in Manila, read her story here http://filipina-nannies-caregivers.blogspot.ca/2013/05/this-blog-was-inspired-by-filipina.htm .
==============================================
Introduction to Marcos
Anyone reading about Marcos for the first time has
only one thing to know -- Ferdinand Marcos was one of the greatest thieves in
history - surpassing other despots like Duvalier, Hitler and Pinochet.
Marcos controlled the Philippines for more than 21 years and plundered the
Philippines treasury of more than 10 Billion US Dollars hiding them mainly in secret
Swiss Banks. How did he do it? By enforcing Martial Law to keep his presidency uncontested without any election in a democratic country, by physically banishing
all his critics, by forbidding free press thereby brainwashing the population, and by suppressing all wealthy
families who refused to side with him.
Marcos was the most successful thief in history, mainly due to the help of the USA government and the Vatican, read more here about the
Marcos Billions and the Catholic Church, Marcos Gold & Billions . There was a priest
chaplain at the Malacanang Palace where Imelda Marcos received communion every
day, but her conscience couldn't be closer to the Devil's greedy eyes with her stolen jeweleries, palaces and famous 5,000 pairs of foreign designer shoes – oh, really, how many Filipino people
starved to death - in order to feed her extravagances and vanity??
Before Marcos became President, the Philippine
currency was 2 pesos to one American Dollar. By the time he fled to
Hawaii, it was 26 pesos to a dollar. The
success of the three Marcos children in politics today proves the SLAVE
mentality embedded in the Philippine people as Jose Rizal saw in his days in the 19th
century when he defined them in Noli Me Tangere: “There are no tyrants where there are no
slaves”. The Philippines was a slave country to Spain for 400 years until Rizal and other heroes came along to liberate them. Sadly today, the Philippines is again the slave country of the USA, read more here http://filipina-nannies-caregivers.blogspot.ca/2013/05/philippinesustroops-out-now-true.html
Imee Marcos, sons tied to offshore trust in
Caribbean
April 6,
2013 at 12:55pm
By Roel Landingin and Karol Ilagan, Philippine Center for
Investigative Journalism
Posted at 04/04/2013 1:26 PM | Updated as of 04/04/2013 10:27
(First of Two Parts)
MANILA, Philippines - Maria Imelda Marcos Manotoc, the Princeton-educated eldest child of the late Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos and now a senior political figure in her own right, is beneficiary of a secret offshore trust.
The hardworking and popular provincial governor — widely known as Imee Marcos — is one of the beneficiaries of the Sintra Trust, which financial records uncovered by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists show to have been formed in June 2002 in the British Virgin Islands. Other beneficiaries are Imee Marcos’ adult sons with estranged husband Tomas Manotoc: Ferdinand Richard Michael Marcos Manotoc, Matthew Joseph Marcos Manotoc, and Fernando Martin "Borgy" Marcos Manotoc.
Scores of documents, the most recent dated 2010, show that Imee Marcos was also a financial advisor for the Sintra Trust as well as a company in which the Sintra Trust was a beneficial shareholder called ComCentre Corporation, formed in January 2002 in the BVI and still in operation; and a “master client” for the M Trust, formed July 1997 in Labuan, Malaysia, and closed July 2009.
Philippine law requires government officials to disclose their assets no matter where they’re held, and Imee Marcos’s disclosure statements do not list the three offshore entities. It is not known what assets they hold, but one Sintra Trust document refers to a bank account with United Overseas Bank Limited, a financial institution headquartered in Singapore. Another record related to ComCentre refers to an account at HSBC.
The Philippines’ Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) is eager to find out if the entities connected to Imee Marcos might contain some of the estimated $5 billion that her father allegedly amassed through corruption. He too held offshore accounts, which the Philippine government has sought to freeze.
Why send stash abroad?
Ferdinand Marcos fled the Philippines with his family and their close associates when a revolution toppled his 21-year rule in February 1986. He had been accused of large-scale human rights violations as well as widespread corruption.
After Marcos died in exile in 1989 at age 72, his wife, the flamboyant Imelda Marcos, returned to the Philippines with their three grown children to rebuild political careers and to contest the government’s seizure of their assets and properties.
Though many cases are still in the courts almost 25 years on, the government has scored a few major victories, including a Supreme Court ruling forfeiting to the state $356 million of the Marcos couple’s secret Swiss deposits after declaring the funds to be “ill-gotten.”
Imee Marcos’s role in the offshore entities uncovered by the ICIJ data raises questions on why a public official has need for offshore trusts and corporations in tax havens.
Philippine law requires public officials to list all assets in annual Statements of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth. This statement must include business interests and financial connections, including those located in other countries.
In addition, the Philippine Constitution requires that “members of the Senate and the House of Representatives shall, upon assumption of office, make a full disclosure of their financial and business interests.”
But the Sintra Trust and the two other offshore companies linked to Imee Marcos were not listed in the asset disclosure statements that she filed as lawmaker and provincial governor and which were examined by the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism.
Imee won’t comment
PCIJ sent an email and a fax to Imee Marcos asking her to comment on the ICIJ findings, but she did not respond to the detailed questions. The day after the PCIJ sent the questions to the governor a person who claimed to be a long-time friend of Imee Marcos called the journalists to inquire about the story. The PCIJ requested that she ask Imee Marcos to respond to the questions or agree to be interviewed. The person called twice more later to say that she would visit the PCIJ office but did not show up at all.
A Civil Service Commission expert who helped draft the latest guidelines on asset disclosures said the law requires public officials to disclose all their assets and properties whether in the Philippines or elsewhere. “If it’s yours, you should declare it,” said Ariel Ronquillo of the commission’s legal affairs office.
Officers of the PCGG, tasked to recover the billions believed to have been stashed away by the Marcoses, are now keen to find out if funds being managed by the Sintra Trust and the two other offshore entities came from the former dictator’s allegedly ill-gotten wealth. “We are duty bound to investigate, and then pursue or discount the matter depending on informed findings,” said Maita Chan-Gonzaga, a commissioner of the PCGG. “If funds came from the pre-1986 Marcos secret deposits that were the subject of freeze orders, then those responsible for moving the funds around could be committing money laundering.”
Former and current government officials shown some of the documents gathered by ICIJ said they were reminiscent of the methods Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos used in the 1970s when they created secret offshore accounts and foundations.
“Fruit never falls far from the tree. Like parents, like daughter,” said former Sen. Rene Saguisag, a human rights lawyer during the Marcos dictatorship and a spokesman for President Corazon Aquino, who succeeded Marcos in 1986.
Saguisag said that the discovery of any assets linked to Imee Marcos may help in the enforcement of a $4.2 million judgment made by a U.S. court against her in 1991 for the 1977 death of a Filipino student activist who publicly questioned her about her government appointments and who was kidnapped and tortured by state security forces under her control. In 1993, the mother of the victim initiated court proceedings in the Philippines to enforce the U.S. judgment, but the Supreme Court rejected the claim in 2006 saying Imee Marcos had not been properly notified.
Didn’t show in SALN
Imee Marcos’s offshore assets are unknown, but the statements she’s filed show wealth that’s significant by Philippines standards but less so in the context of the international elite. PCIJ examined 12 of the 15 such statements that she filed from 1998 to 2007 when she was a member of Congress and then in 2010 and 2011 when she was provincial governor.
The statements showed that her assets, consisting mostly of inherited jewelry, paintings and artifacts, as well as vehicles, rose in value from about $170,000 (P6.72 million) in December 1998 to about $640,000 (P27.9 million) in December 2011. Almost half of the overall increase came from the higher value of jewelry, and the value of her paintings and artifacts more than doubled.
Most Marcos statements that ICIJ examined were less than specific in listing her business connections and financial interests. “Share of various corporations currently under litigation; estate of Ferdinand E. Marcos,” one reported. In 2010 and 2011, she listed about $2,300 worth of stocks among her assets.
The ICIJ investigation also found more than 500 other Philippine residents who have links with offshore trusts, corporations and other entities. Only about half the names have public profiles, of varying prominence. Most are business people, professionals or people who work for foreign companies in the Philippines. But some are owned by public officials.
The wealth and career of Maria Imelda "Imee" R. Marcos
Resurrected careers
The Marcoses have staged a remarkable comeback in Philippine politics. In 2010, Ferdinand Marcos Jr., known as Bongbong, won a Senate seat. He is now being touted as a possible presidential candidate in 2016.
Imee’s and Ferdinand Jr.’s mother is now a member of Congress, where she is seeking a second three-year term.
Imee Marcos ran and won as member of the House of Representatives representing her father’s political bailiwick in Ilocos Norte from 1998 to 2007. In 2010, she made a successful run as governor of Ilocos Norte province, defeating the incumbent, who is her first cousin.
One of Marcos’s biggest achievements as provincial governor is developing Ilocos Norte as a major tourism draw for both local and foreign tourists.
She says she has set new standards for transparency in local government, calling it “open governance.” The provincial government celebrates the province’s foundation day by opening up the capitol to the people, literally. “Students see how government works and how departments process papers,” she boasted to the Philippine Daily Inquirer early this year. “We even opened a provincial safe to show tax collections, how they process the money and bring them to the bank.”
In a sign of her popularity in the province, she is running unopposed for a second term as provincial governor in a May election.
The personal assets of Imee Marcos (2010 and 2011)
Offshore accounts details
The Sintra Trust was created in June 2002 with the help of a Singapore-based offshore service firm called Portcullis TrustNet.
The documents indicate that in her role of financial advisor, Imee Marcos had powers to direct the investment of trust assets held by banks and other financial institutions.
The so-called “settlor,” “trust protector,” and “master client” listed in the documents is Mark Chua, a Singapore-based businessman. Imee’s sister-in-law Liza Araneta-Marcos, in newspaper reports published in May 2007, had named Chua as Imee’s boyfriend. The settlor refers to the person who creates the trust by transferring a certain asset that he or she owns to the trustee, who then assumes legal ownership of the assets on behalf of the beneficiaries.
Chua has not replied to PCIJ’s questions on his role in Sintra Trust.
In June 2005, Imee was named investment adviser of the Sintra Trust, according to a document uncovered by ICIJ. As investment adviser, she can direct any financial institution in the purchase, sale, liquidation, and investment of the trust assets. Chua also became an investment advisor for the trust in 2006.
Although the Sintra Trust is located in the British Virgin Islands, another PCGG official said he does not find it surprising that its servicing company, Portcullis TrustNet, is based in Singapore, which has one of the toughest financial secrecy regulations in the world. It ranked No. 6 in the 2011 Financial Secrecy Index of the Tax Justice Network, a London-based group, which campaigns against tax havens.
“We’ve had a hard time getting cooperation from Singapore in our requests for international mutual assistance on criminal matters,” said the PCGG official, who asked not to be identified because of the confidential nature of his work for the agency.
Parallels with Dad’s foundations
Despite being formed in 2002, thirteen years after the death of Ferdinand Marcos, Sintra Trust has parallels with the Marcos foundations set up in the early 1970s in Liechtenstein. Then as now, the offshore entities were established in well-known tax havens that guaranteed secrecy. Before, the beneficiaries were the Marcos couple and their children. Now, it is Imee and her children. Both the BVI trust and Liechtenstein foundations were set up with the help of foreign lawyers and other professionals whose job is ensuring the real owners and beneficiaries are well hidden.
Some of the documents that the Marcoses left behind at the Malacañang presidential palace as they were rushing to board U.S. military helicopters to take them to safety on February 25, 1986, show that the former president instructed one of his foreign agents, Marcus Geel of Zurich in Switzerland, to set up the Xandy Foundation in Vaduz, Liechtenstein in March 1970. Marcos and Imelda were named first beneficiaries, the surviving spouse the second beneficiary, and the three Marcos children were named as equal third beneficiaries.
A few months later, Marcos instructed his foreign agents to transfer funds from four secret Swiss bank accounts that Marcos and Imelda opened in 1968, just two years after he became president, to the Xandy Foundation. The couple hid their identities, using the false names “William Saunders” and “Jane Ryan” when they opened the Swiss bank accounts. Among the documents the Marcoses left behind at the presidential residence were accomplished “declaration/specimen signatures” forms where Ferdinand signed with their real names as well as pseudonyms.
In August 1970, Imelda also instructed Geel to set up the Trinidad Foundation in Vaduz, Liechtenstein, with C.W. Fessler, E. Scheller of Swiss Credit Bank, and Otto Tondury as directors. Imelda was named first beneficiary while her three children were named second beneficiaries.
The secret Swiss deposits, which include funds held in the name of the Xandy and Trinidad foundations and other secret entities, were part of the Marcos monies frozen by the Swiss authorities in 1986 and eventually forfeited in favor of the government by the Philippine Supreme Court in 2003.
Investigating the remnants of the famed Marcos billions has become more difficult and costly in recent years because the money trail has gone cold. Many of the offshore financial centers where the funds are deposited are reluctant to help for fear it will undermine their attractiveness to investors, according to PCGG officials.
As a result, public and government interest in the Philippines in recovering the alleged ill-gotten wealth of the Marcoses and their associates seem to be waning. Last year, the head of the PCGG spoke of the possibility of the agency folding up and its functions parceled out to the Department of Justice and other government agencies. An outcry from Marcos-era victims of human right violations forced the government to keep the commission going, at least for now. – Mar Cabra of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists contributed to this story, PCIJ, April 2013
Posted at 04/04/2013 1:26 PM | Updated as of 04/04/2013 10:27
(First of Two Parts)
MANILA, Philippines - Maria Imelda Marcos Manotoc, the Princeton-educated eldest child of the late Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos and now a senior political figure in her own right, is beneficiary of a secret offshore trust.
The hardworking and popular provincial governor — widely known as Imee Marcos — is one of the beneficiaries of the Sintra Trust, which financial records uncovered by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists show to have been formed in June 2002 in the British Virgin Islands. Other beneficiaries are Imee Marcos’ adult sons with estranged husband Tomas Manotoc: Ferdinand Richard Michael Marcos Manotoc, Matthew Joseph Marcos Manotoc, and Fernando Martin "Borgy" Marcos Manotoc.
Scores of documents, the most recent dated 2010, show that Imee Marcos was also a financial advisor for the Sintra Trust as well as a company in which the Sintra Trust was a beneficial shareholder called ComCentre Corporation, formed in January 2002 in the BVI and still in operation; and a “master client” for the M Trust, formed July 1997 in Labuan, Malaysia, and closed July 2009.
Philippine law requires government officials to disclose their assets no matter where they’re held, and Imee Marcos’s disclosure statements do not list the three offshore entities. It is not known what assets they hold, but one Sintra Trust document refers to a bank account with United Overseas Bank Limited, a financial institution headquartered in Singapore. Another record related to ComCentre refers to an account at HSBC.
The Philippines’ Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) is eager to find out if the entities connected to Imee Marcos might contain some of the estimated $5 billion that her father allegedly amassed through corruption. He too held offshore accounts, which the Philippine government has sought to freeze.
Why send stash abroad?
Ferdinand Marcos fled the Philippines with his family and their close associates when a revolution toppled his 21-year rule in February 1986. He had been accused of large-scale human rights violations as well as widespread corruption.
After Marcos died in exile in 1989 at age 72, his wife, the flamboyant Imelda Marcos, returned to the Philippines with their three grown children to rebuild political careers and to contest the government’s seizure of their assets and properties.
Though many cases are still in the courts almost 25 years on, the government has scored a few major victories, including a Supreme Court ruling forfeiting to the state $356 million of the Marcos couple’s secret Swiss deposits after declaring the funds to be “ill-gotten.”
Imee Marcos’s role in the offshore entities uncovered by the ICIJ data raises questions on why a public official has need for offshore trusts and corporations in tax havens.
Philippine law requires public officials to list all assets in annual Statements of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth. This statement must include business interests and financial connections, including those located in other countries.
In addition, the Philippine Constitution requires that “members of the Senate and the House of Representatives shall, upon assumption of office, make a full disclosure of their financial and business interests.”
But the Sintra Trust and the two other offshore companies linked to Imee Marcos were not listed in the asset disclosure statements that she filed as lawmaker and provincial governor and which were examined by the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism.
Imee won’t comment
PCIJ sent an email and a fax to Imee Marcos asking her to comment on the ICIJ findings, but she did not respond to the detailed questions. The day after the PCIJ sent the questions to the governor a person who claimed to be a long-time friend of Imee Marcos called the journalists to inquire about the story. The PCIJ requested that she ask Imee Marcos to respond to the questions or agree to be interviewed. The person called twice more later to say that she would visit the PCIJ office but did not show up at all.
A Civil Service Commission expert who helped draft the latest guidelines on asset disclosures said the law requires public officials to disclose all their assets and properties whether in the Philippines or elsewhere. “If it’s yours, you should declare it,” said Ariel Ronquillo of the commission’s legal affairs office.
Officers of the PCGG, tasked to recover the billions believed to have been stashed away by the Marcoses, are now keen to find out if funds being managed by the Sintra Trust and the two other offshore entities came from the former dictator’s allegedly ill-gotten wealth. “We are duty bound to investigate, and then pursue or discount the matter depending on informed findings,” said Maita Chan-Gonzaga, a commissioner of the PCGG. “If funds came from the pre-1986 Marcos secret deposits that were the subject of freeze orders, then those responsible for moving the funds around could be committing money laundering.”
Former and current government officials shown some of the documents gathered by ICIJ said they were reminiscent of the methods Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos used in the 1970s when they created secret offshore accounts and foundations.
“Fruit never falls far from the tree. Like parents, like daughter,” said former Sen. Rene Saguisag, a human rights lawyer during the Marcos dictatorship and a spokesman for President Corazon Aquino, who succeeded Marcos in 1986.
Saguisag said that the discovery of any assets linked to Imee Marcos may help in the enforcement of a $4.2 million judgment made by a U.S. court against her in 1991 for the 1977 death of a Filipino student activist who publicly questioned her about her government appointments and who was kidnapped and tortured by state security forces under her control. In 1993, the mother of the victim initiated court proceedings in the Philippines to enforce the U.S. judgment, but the Supreme Court rejected the claim in 2006 saying Imee Marcos had not been properly notified.
Didn’t show in SALN
Imee Marcos’s offshore assets are unknown, but the statements she’s filed show wealth that’s significant by Philippines standards but less so in the context of the international elite. PCIJ examined 12 of the 15 such statements that she filed from 1998 to 2007 when she was a member of Congress and then in 2010 and 2011 when she was provincial governor.
The statements showed that her assets, consisting mostly of inherited jewelry, paintings and artifacts, as well as vehicles, rose in value from about $170,000 (P6.72 million) in December 1998 to about $640,000 (P27.9 million) in December 2011. Almost half of the overall increase came from the higher value of jewelry, and the value of her paintings and artifacts more than doubled.
Most Marcos statements that ICIJ examined were less than specific in listing her business connections and financial interests. “Share of various corporations currently under litigation; estate of Ferdinand E. Marcos,” one reported. In 2010 and 2011, she listed about $2,300 worth of stocks among her assets.
The ICIJ investigation also found more than 500 other Philippine residents who have links with offshore trusts, corporations and other entities. Only about half the names have public profiles, of varying prominence. Most are business people, professionals or people who work for foreign companies in the Philippines. But some are owned by public officials.
The wealth and career of Maria Imelda "Imee" R. Marcos
Resurrected careers
The Marcoses have staged a remarkable comeback in Philippine politics. In 2010, Ferdinand Marcos Jr., known as Bongbong, won a Senate seat. He is now being touted as a possible presidential candidate in 2016.
Imee’s and Ferdinand Jr.’s mother is now a member of Congress, where she is seeking a second three-year term.
Imee Marcos ran and won as member of the House of Representatives representing her father’s political bailiwick in Ilocos Norte from 1998 to 2007. In 2010, she made a successful run as governor of Ilocos Norte province, defeating the incumbent, who is her first cousin.
One of Marcos’s biggest achievements as provincial governor is developing Ilocos Norte as a major tourism draw for both local and foreign tourists.
She says she has set new standards for transparency in local government, calling it “open governance.” The provincial government celebrates the province’s foundation day by opening up the capitol to the people, literally. “Students see how government works and how departments process papers,” she boasted to the Philippine Daily Inquirer early this year. “We even opened a provincial safe to show tax collections, how they process the money and bring them to the bank.”
In a sign of her popularity in the province, she is running unopposed for a second term as provincial governor in a May election.
The personal assets of Imee Marcos (2010 and 2011)
Offshore accounts details
The Sintra Trust was created in June 2002 with the help of a Singapore-based offshore service firm called Portcullis TrustNet.
The documents indicate that in her role of financial advisor, Imee Marcos had powers to direct the investment of trust assets held by banks and other financial institutions.
The so-called “settlor,” “trust protector,” and “master client” listed in the documents is Mark Chua, a Singapore-based businessman. Imee’s sister-in-law Liza Araneta-Marcos, in newspaper reports published in May 2007, had named Chua as Imee’s boyfriend. The settlor refers to the person who creates the trust by transferring a certain asset that he or she owns to the trustee, who then assumes legal ownership of the assets on behalf of the beneficiaries.
Chua has not replied to PCIJ’s questions on his role in Sintra Trust.
In June 2005, Imee was named investment adviser of the Sintra Trust, according to a document uncovered by ICIJ. As investment adviser, she can direct any financial institution in the purchase, sale, liquidation, and investment of the trust assets. Chua also became an investment advisor for the trust in 2006.
Although the Sintra Trust is located in the British Virgin Islands, another PCGG official said he does not find it surprising that its servicing company, Portcullis TrustNet, is based in Singapore, which has one of the toughest financial secrecy regulations in the world. It ranked No. 6 in the 2011 Financial Secrecy Index of the Tax Justice Network, a London-based group, which campaigns against tax havens.
“We’ve had a hard time getting cooperation from Singapore in our requests for international mutual assistance on criminal matters,” said the PCGG official, who asked not to be identified because of the confidential nature of his work for the agency.
Parallels with Dad’s foundations
Despite being formed in 2002, thirteen years after the death of Ferdinand Marcos, Sintra Trust has parallels with the Marcos foundations set up in the early 1970s in Liechtenstein. Then as now, the offshore entities were established in well-known tax havens that guaranteed secrecy. Before, the beneficiaries were the Marcos couple and their children. Now, it is Imee and her children. Both the BVI trust and Liechtenstein foundations were set up with the help of foreign lawyers and other professionals whose job is ensuring the real owners and beneficiaries are well hidden.
Some of the documents that the Marcoses left behind at the Malacañang presidential palace as they were rushing to board U.S. military helicopters to take them to safety on February 25, 1986, show that the former president instructed one of his foreign agents, Marcus Geel of Zurich in Switzerland, to set up the Xandy Foundation in Vaduz, Liechtenstein in March 1970. Marcos and Imelda were named first beneficiaries, the surviving spouse the second beneficiary, and the three Marcos children were named as equal third beneficiaries.
A few months later, Marcos instructed his foreign agents to transfer funds from four secret Swiss bank accounts that Marcos and Imelda opened in 1968, just two years after he became president, to the Xandy Foundation. The couple hid their identities, using the false names “William Saunders” and “Jane Ryan” when they opened the Swiss bank accounts. Among the documents the Marcoses left behind at the presidential residence were accomplished “declaration/specimen signatures” forms where Ferdinand signed with their real names as well as pseudonyms.
In August 1970, Imelda also instructed Geel to set up the Trinidad Foundation in Vaduz, Liechtenstein, with C.W. Fessler, E. Scheller of Swiss Credit Bank, and Otto Tondury as directors. Imelda was named first beneficiary while her three children were named second beneficiaries.
The secret Swiss deposits, which include funds held in the name of the Xandy and Trinidad foundations and other secret entities, were part of the Marcos monies frozen by the Swiss authorities in 1986 and eventually forfeited in favor of the government by the Philippine Supreme Court in 2003.
Investigating the remnants of the famed Marcos billions has become more difficult and costly in recent years because the money trail has gone cold. Many of the offshore financial centers where the funds are deposited are reluctant to help for fear it will undermine their attractiveness to investors, according to PCGG officials.
As a result, public and government interest in the Philippines in recovering the alleged ill-gotten wealth of the Marcoses and their associates seem to be waning. Last year, the head of the PCGG spoke of the possibility of the agency folding up and its functions parceled out to the Department of Justice and other government agencies. An outcry from Marcos-era victims of human right violations forced the government to keep the commission going, at least for now. – Mar Cabra of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists contributed to this story, PCIJ, April 2013
Source: https://www.facebook.com/notes/pinay-quebec/imee-marcos-sons-tied-to-offshore-trust-in-caribbean/551378514907360
===================
September 22, 2013
==================
September 22, 2013
41 years after
Today
marks the 41st year when then President Ferdinand E. Marcos declared martial
law and imposed a dictatorship to perpetuate himself in power. In 1986 a
peaceful popular uprising ended his despotic rule.
Marcos’
14-year dictatorship ruthlessly repressed or tried to repress all those it
perceived as opposition. It exploited and impoverished the masses, enriched the
favored few, plundered the public till, and ruined the economy.
This is a
day for recollecting and reckoning, but not — never! — for commemorating that
anti-democratic, anti-people act.
And it’s
appropriate that organizers of the sustained protest actions demanding the
abolition of the pork-barrel system directly link today’s protest march-rallies
and noise barrage to recollecting and reckoning martial-law brutalities, abuses
of power and excesses.
It was
the Marcos dictatorship that started and craftily manipulated the pork-barrel
system. Then (with the rubber-stamp Batasang Pambansa) as now (with the Senate
and the House of Representatives) the pork barrel has been used to render the
legislators subservient to the President.
But
reckoning must go beyond the pork-barrel system. Marcos inflicted other
deleterious changes on the budget process that have been carried on to this
day.
Thanks to
veteran journalist-lawyer and anti-dictatorship fighter Manuel F. Almario for
reminding us about these, through a commentary last week. The changes are:
• Through
Presidential Decree 1177 (Budget Reform Act of 1977), Marcos revoked the
budgetary system established since 1938 by Commonwealth Act No. 246, which
provided for a line-item framework in national budgeting. That meant that every
proposed government expense (for public works projects, for salaries, supplies,
etc.) had to be listed down in the budget. And implementation was subjected to
strict pre-auditing rules.
• Marcos
replaced line-item budgeting with lump-sum appropriations, hiding from public
scrutiny the specific project expenditures. He also replaced the pre-auditing
rules with post-auditing, which meant that it was only after the projects were
supposedly completed that the Commission on Audit would know how the money —
including pork barrel — was spent. That has become the practice since then.
• Worse,
PD 1177 removed from Congress the power to review and pass upon the amount of
annual repayment of national obligations, mainly foreign debts. (Meanwhile,
through PD 1967, Marcos incurred $24-billion foreign loans.) PD 1177 mandates
the automatic appropriation for debt servicing, which has eaten up substantial
portions of the national income every year — P796 billion for 2014.
In the
late 1980s the 8th Congress passed a bill repealing PD 1177, but Cory Aquino
vetoed it. Earlier, many of its provisions were included in the Administrative
Code of 1987 which she signed into law. Subsequent efforts to repeal the decree
(as my colleagues and I tried in the House from 2001 to 2010) were frustrated.
Beyond
these pork-barrel and budgetary issues, it’s important to review certain
conditions or issues during and after the Marcos dictatorship in order to gauge
how far the nation has, or hasn’t, moved forward. For instance:
• Just
one aspect of human rights violations – enforced disappearances: Under the
Marcos dictatorship at least 759 “desaparecidos” were documented. Such
violations continued under all successive administrations, with these
corresponding numbers: under Mrs. Aquino, 821; Ramos, 39; Estrada, 26; Arroyo,
206; and P-Noy, 16.
The
families of these 1,867 victims of enforced disappearances still cry out for
justice. Meantime, other serious human rights violations — primarily
extrajudicial killings, with 142 victims recorded under P-Noy’s watch — have
continued with impunity.
• Among
the Marcos dictatorship’s tens of thousands human-rights violation victims,
9,539 won a class suit in a US court in 1992. They were awarded $2-billion
compensation to be taken from the Marcos ill-gotten wealth that may be
recovered. So far only $100 million was distributed to 7,500 of them.
• Last
February, President Aquino signed into law a legislation recognizing the 9,539
victims and granting P10-billion compensation to them and other victims who may
also qualify under certain criteria. Until now P-Noy has not appointed the
members of the compensation board who would implement the law.
• Through
PD 27, Marcos declared all the country’s agricultural lands subjected to
agrarian reform. That would have been a truly revolutionary program, but it
never got implemented.
• In 1987
the Cory government enacted and began implementing a weak 10-year
“comprehensive agrarian reform program” as its “centerpiece” program — but
exempting huge private landholdings from coverage. It underwent further
amendments adding more exemptions while implementation dragged.
Thus even
if fully implemented, the CARP would fail to achieve its avowed goal.
Today
farmers and agricultural workers across the nation continue to rally for
genuine agrarian reform.
• Marcos
flaunted a plan to develop 11 industrial projects that would propel the
Philippines towards full industrialization. But like his agrarian reform
program the plan never took off. Today, after five successive administrations,
we still don’t have any basic industry to speak of.
• In the
final year of the Marcos dictatorship (1985), income inequality was configured
this way: 20% of the population held 52.1% of total family income, while 80% of
the other Filipinos shared the remaining 47.9%.
After 24
years (in 2009) this condition hardly changed: the top 20% held 51.9% of
income, the bottom 80% made do with 48.1%.
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E-mail:
satur.ocampo@gmail.com
September 14, 2013
September 14, 2013
- See
more at: http://bulatlat.com/main/2013/09/22/41-years-after/#sthash.XZB0j8kf.dpuf
Maria Clara on said:
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
The consequences of
Martial Law are the “modern-day slaves” Filipinas working cheap labor worldwide
http://filipina-nannies-caregivers.blogspot.ca/2013/05/philippines-imee-marcos-sons-tied-to.html
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more at: http://bulatlat.com/main/2013/09/22/41-years-after/comment-page-1/#comment-388248
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This blog was inspired by a Filipina domestic from the Middle East who abandonned her baby born inside airline toilet upon landing in Manila
http://filipina-nannies-caregivers.blogspot.ca/2013/05/this-blog-was-inspired-by-filipina.html
Caregiver EMPOWERMENT DAY. SISTERHOOD OF CAREGIVERS. Woman, you are the Face of God.Women EMPOWERMENT Day with Beyoncé and Salma Hayek. Women's way is not "fight and flight"
http://filipina-nannies-caregivers.blogspot.ca/2013/05/woman-you-are-face-of-god-women.html
All Filipina nannies, caregivers, domestic maids
arriving in Canada, USA, and everywhere in the world
-- should have an EMPOWERMENT DAY
-- an orientation day, an introduction day
-- wherein they are told their rights and
-- wherein they are trained to defend themselves from all kinds of abuses and exploitation
-- especially fight against - working 24 hours a day - everyday - within 7 days a week.
-- All Filipina maids should keep a DAILY LOG SHEET on how many hours they work and what kind of extra work they do, TO PROVE they are being EXPLOITED after their 7 hours or 8 hours shift - that they work 24 hours everyday, 7 days a week!
SISTERHOOD OF CAREGIVERS
We suggest that all organizations like AAFQ establish a Sisterhood of Caregivers -- wherein a member adopts a NEWCOMER caregiver for a year -- to be her guide and mentor, moral support and prevention -- from becoming a slave.
I am a witness to the suffering of my people. I am a chronicler of truth and a catalyst of change... (from The Scholastican)
arriving in Canada, USA, and everywhere in the world
-- should have an EMPOWERMENT DAY
-- an orientation day, an introduction day
-- wherein they are told their rights and
-- wherein they are trained to defend themselves from all kinds of abuses and exploitation
-- especially fight against - working 24 hours a day - everyday - within 7 days a week.
-- All Filipina maids should keep a DAILY LOG SHEET on how many hours they work and what kind of extra work they do, TO PROVE they are being EXPLOITED after their 7 hours or 8 hours shift - that they work 24 hours everyday, 7 days a week!
SISTERHOOD OF CAREGIVERS
We suggest that all organizations like AAFQ establish a Sisterhood of Caregivers -- wherein a member adopts a NEWCOMER caregiver for a year -- to be her guide and mentor, moral support and prevention -- from becoming a slave.
I am a witness to the suffering of my people. I am a chronicler of truth and a catalyst of change... (from The Scholastican)
True Independence history of the Philippines. USA SLAVERY of Philippines. U.S.TROOPS OUT NOW!
http://filipina-nannies-caregivers.blogspot.ca/2013/05/philippinesustroops-out-now-true.html
.
Jose Rizal - Noli Me Tangere - a novel MUST READ for all Filipina domestic maids who are the NEW WOMEN SLAVES of the WORLD TODAY!
Read more here about Noli Me Tangere and special quotations from Jose Rizal http://filipina-nannies-caregivers.blogspot.ca/2013/05/jose-rizal-quotations.html
Pinay maid wins case against Princess Marie-Chantal of Greece and P500K in compensation
Susana
Danio, a Filipina maid from Pangasinan, recently won a legal battle in
the United Kingdom over being unfairly dismissed by Princess
Marie-Chantal of Greece, reports ABS-CBNNews.com.
The London-born princess, heiress daughter of US duty-free billionaire
Robert Miller, was ordered to pay Danio almost £7,500 (about P500,000).
Danio, 34, claimed she was fired in April after other staff members of the household "brainwashed" the princess. "Senior staff were jealous of me. After three months, my salary was increased. The princess knew I did my job well. It was all about envy and jealousy from senior staff. They made up stories, gossip and lies to brainwash the princess," The Daily Mail quoted Danio as saying. "I was accused of stealing clothes, sleeping in guest bedrooms, not listening and being rude."
Saying it took her six months to find another job, she sought around £10,000 in damages, according to The Daily Mail. A central London tribunal awarded her £7,442. Judge Angela Stewart said, "We order the respondent to pay the claimant for being unfairly dismissed...The tribunal concluded that even though the claimant got a written reference she would still have had to explain about her dismissal and what had happened about her position in the previous household."
Danio's case has been compared to a UK TV period drama, Downton Abbey, featuring plotting servants. According to The Daily Mail, Danio has lived in the UK since 2004 and has worked for several "reputable private families." Princess Marie Chantal, 42, owns a chain of children's fashion boutiques and has published a fairytale book. She is married to Prince Pavlos of Greece.
For more on this story, log on to ABS-CBNNews.com and The Daily Mail.
- See more at:
http://www.spot.ph/the-feed/47088/pinay-maid-wins-case-against-princess-in-uk-paid-almost-7500-in-compensation/#sthash.nJJ9vmGR.dpufDanio, 34, claimed she was fired in April after other staff members of the household "brainwashed" the princess. "Senior staff were jealous of me. After three months, my salary was increased. The princess knew I did my job well. It was all about envy and jealousy from senior staff. They made up stories, gossip and lies to brainwash the princess," The Daily Mail quoted Danio as saying. "I was accused of stealing clothes, sleeping in guest bedrooms, not listening and being rude."
Saying it took her six months to find another job, she sought around £10,000 in damages, according to The Daily Mail. A central London tribunal awarded her £7,442. Judge Angela Stewart said, "We order the respondent to pay the claimant for being unfairly dismissed...The tribunal concluded that even though the claimant got a written reference she would still have had to explain about her dismissal and what had happened about her position in the previous household."
Danio's case has been compared to a UK TV period drama, Downton Abbey, featuring plotting servants. According to The Daily Mail, Danio has lived in the UK since 2004 and has worked for several "reputable private families." Princess Marie Chantal, 42, owns a chain of children's fashion boutiques and has published a fairytale book. She is married to Prince Pavlos of Greece.
For more on this story, log on to ABS-CBNNews.com and The Daily Mail.
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