Charlie Avila, who HAS NOT forgotten what the Marcoses did, reminds

us, in his CHRONOLOGY OF THE MARCOS PLUNDER, that in.

September 1976

This month the Marcoses bought their first property in the U.S. - a

condo in the exclusive Olympic Towers on Fifth Avenue in New York . Five

months later they would also buy the three adjoining apartments, paying a

total of $4,000,000.00 for the four and using Antonio Floirendo's company,

Theaventures Limited in Hong Kong , as front for these purchases.

October 13, 1977

Today, after addressing the UN General Assembly, Imelda celebrated

by going shopping and spending $384,000 including $50,000 for a platinum

bracelet with rubies; $50,000 for a diamond bracelet; and $58,000 for a pin

set with diamonds.

The day before, Vilma Bautista, one of her private secretaries, paid

$18,500 for a gold pendant with diamonds and emeralds; $9,450 for a gold

ring with diamonds and emeralds; and $4,800 for a gold and diamond necklace.



October 27, 1977

The Marcoses donated $1.5 million to Tufts University in Boston ,

endowing a professorial chair in East Asian and Pacific Studies at the

Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. The students and professors discovered

this and forced the school to reject the donation. To save face, the

Marcoses were allowed to finance several seminars and lectures.

November 2, 1977

Still at her shopping spree, Imelda paid $450,000 for a gold

necklace and bracelet with emeralds, rubies, and diamonds; $300,000 for a

gold ring with emeralds and diamonds; and $300,000 for a gold pendant with

diamonds, rubies, and thirty-nine emeralds.



July 1978

After a trip to Russia , Imelda arrived in New York and immediately

warmed up for a shopping spree. She started with paying $193,320 for

antiques, including $12,000 for a Ming Period side table; $24,000 for a pair

of Georgian mahogany Gainsborough armchairs; $6,240 for a Sheraton

double-sided writing desk; $11,600 for a George II wood side table with

marble top - all in the name of the Philippine consulate to dodge New York

sales tax.

That was merely for starters.

A week later she spent $2,181,000.00 in one day! This included

$1,150,000 for a platinum and emerald bracelet with diamonds from Bulgari;

$330,000 for a necklace with a ruby, diamonds, and emeralds; $300,000 for a

ring with heart-shaped emeralds; $78,000 for 18-carat gold ear clips with

diamonds; $300,000 for a pendant with canary diamonds, rubies and emeralds

on a gold chain.

After New York, she dropped by Hong Kong where a Cartier

representative admitted it was this Filipina, Imelda, who had put together

the world's largest collection of gems - in 1978.

May 1979

The Marcos couple celebrated their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary

in a party that cost $5,000,000.00 There was a silver carriage drawn by

eight white horses.

November 23, 1978

A house was purchased at 4 Capshire Drive in Cherry Hill , New

Jersey (actually near to Philadelphia where Bongbong was taking courses at

that time) for use by servants and Bongbong's security detachment.

The Marcoses did not neglect their annual real estate purchase.

During this year and next year, 1979, they purchased two properties - one at

3850 Princeton Pike, Princeton - a 13-acre estate for use by daughter Imee

as she attended Princeton . The other was a house at 19 Pendleton Drive in

Cherry Hill for use of Bongbong and under the name of Tristan Beplat,

erstwhile head of the American Chamber of Commerce in the Philippines .

April 1979

In two days in New York this month, Imelda spent $280,000 for a

necklace wet with emeralds and diamonds; $18,500 for a yellow gold evening

bag with one round cut diamond; $8,975.20 for 20-carat gold ear clips with

twenty-four baguette diamonds; $8,438.10 for 18-carat gold ear clips with

fifty-two tapered baguette diamonds; and $12,056.50 for 20 carat gold ear

clips with diamonds. June 1980

For $1,577,000.00 in New York Imelda buys Webster Hotel on West 45th

Street . She rewards Gen. Romeo Gatan as a limited partner.. Gatan arrested

Ninoy at the beginning of Martial Law.

The insurgents' ranks grew by twenty percent a year.. Meritorious

officers in the armed forces experienced low moral due to Marcos' penchant

for promotig friends over more deserving officers.

February 16, 1986

In Fe's records of monies paid out during Marcos' last campaign, one

unusually large item was authorized by "FL" (First Lady) and paid to

Assemblyman Arturo Pacificador on this day. A few days later, two carloads

of men drove into San Jose , the provincial capital of Antique. Evelio

Javier, head of Aquino's campaign, was watching the votes being counted when

the men opened fire and killed Evelio after he was still able to run through

town but finally got cornered in a public toilet where he was gunned down in

front of shocked townspeople. Pacificador was later convicted of the murder.



February 25, 1986

Marcos fled the Philippines leaving behind a foreign debt of $27

billion and a bureaucracy gone mad. "Cash advances" for the elections from

the national treasury amounted to Php3.12 billion ($150 million). The

Central Bank printed millions of peso bills, many with the same serial

number. Sixty million pesos in newly printed bills were found in a vehicle

owned by Imelda's brother Bejo in the Port Area of Manila, and another Php

100 million aboard the MV Legaspi also owned by Bejo Romualdez.

How massive and humongous a loot Marcos took can be deduced from the

known losses he left behind.

The known losses he left at the Central Bank included $1.2 billion

in missing reserves and $6 billion in the Special Accounts.

Imelda charged off most of her spending sprees to the PNB or

Philippine National Bank which creatively wrote off her debts as

"unresponded transfers". Ver also used PNB funds to finance his

"intelligence" operations.

The known losses at the PNB amounted to Php72.1 billion At the DBP,

the losses Marcos left behind totaled Php85 billion; at the Philguarantee,

it was Php6.2 billion ; and at the NIDC or National Investment and

Development Corporation (NDC) - the losses amounted to Php 2.8 billion.

These losses were primarily due to cronyism - giving loans to

cronies that had little or no collateral, whose corporations were

undercapitalized, whose loan proceeds were not used for the avowed purpose,

and where the practice of corporate layering was common, i.e. using two or

more companies with the same incorporators and officers, whereby one company

which gives the loan owns the company which obtains the loan, or similar

arrangements. The cronies enjoyed their closeness to Marcos. With him they

formed a Grand Coalition. They participated in the exercise of dictatorship.

But Marcos owned them. The wealth of the cronies belonged to him.

Because of the free rides taken by Imelda, Marcos and the cronies,

the Philippine Airlines was in debt by $13.8 billion.

The conservative Grand Total for losses Marcos left behind (and

therefore the kind of loot he grabbed and hid) amounted to $17..1 billion.

The Central Bank, the PNB, and other financial institutions badly

need an audit. The special review (not regular audit because there seems not

to have been any - there are no records anyway) did not uncover Imelda's

spending - her name never appeared - and Ver's intelligence fund.

The review gave no hint of theft or missing money, only "downward

adjustments" and "proposed adjustments" to "deficiencies" and "shortages of

money".

February 26, 1986

A few hours after the Marcos party landed in Honolulu , their

luggage arrived - 300 crates on board a C-141 cargo jet. It took twenty-five

customs officers five hours to tag the bags and identify the contents. The

process was videotaped because of all the money and jewelry found inside.

There were 278 crates of jewelry and art worth an estimated US$5

million. Twenty-two crates contained more than Php27.7 million in newly

minted currency, mostly hundred-peso denominations worth approximately

US$1,270,000. 00 (It was illegal for anyone to depart the Philippines

carrying more than Php500 in cash. )

There were other certificates of deposit from Philippine banks worth

about US$1 million, five handguns, 154 videotapes, seventeen cassette tapes,

and 2,068 pages of documents - all of which were impounded by Customs. The

Marcos party was allowed to keep only US$300,000.00 in gold and $150,000.00

in bearer bonds that they brought in with their personal luggage because

they declared them and broke no US customs laws.

There were 24 one-kilo gold bars fitted into a=2 0$17,000

hand-tooled Gucci briefcase with a solid gold buckle and a plaque on it that

read, "To Ferdinand Marcos, from Imelda, on the Occasion of our 24th Wedding

Anniversary. "

February 1986

When Marcos departed the Philippines , the losses in the three

Central Bank accounts surpassed Php 122 billion (more than $6 billion). The

big bulk of losses was attributed to the RIR account mainly due to two

items: forward cover and swap contracts. Forward cover referred to foreign

exchange provided by the CB at a fixed exchange rate to importers of

essential commodities. Swap contracts referred to CB's receiving foreign

exchange from banks in exchange for pesos at the prevailing rate with a

promise to deliver the foreign exchange back to them at an agreed future

date.

There was no mention of losses due to CB transactions in gold or

foreign exchange.

February 28, 1986

On this day, Jim Burke, security expert from the US Embassy, was

tapping on the wooden paneling in Imelda's abandoned Malacanang bedroom when

he heard a hollow sound. It was the walk-in vault. Inside were thirty-five

suitcases secured with locks and tape. They contained a treasure trove of

documents about Swiss bank accounts, New York real estate, foundations in

Vaduz , and some notepaper on which Marcos had practiced his William

Saunders signature. They also contained jewelry valued at some US$10..5

million.

March 16, 1986

Did Marcos steal any gold from the CB? The CB always refused to

comment. Why?

Today the LA Times reported that 6.325 metric tons of gold was

unaccounted for in the Central Bank. Between 1978, the year Marcos ordered

all gold producers to sell only to the CB, and end 1984, the Bureau of Mines

reported that 124,234 pounds of gold were refined.

But the CB reported receiving only 110,319 pounds during this same

period. That left a difference of 13,915 pounds (6.325 metric tons).

March 1986

Jokingly referring to themselves as the Office of National Revenge,

a vigilante team led by Charlie Avila and Linggoy Alcuaz received a tip in

the morning that Marcos' daughter Imee had kept a private office in the

suburb of Mandaluyong at 82 Edsa. They obtained a search warrant, then

rushed to Camp Crame to pick up some soldiers. After devising a plan, they

boarded four cars and drove to the premises, arriving around midnight. The

soldiers scaled a fence and sealed off the area. Avila , Alcuaz, and their

men moved in and found documents in cardboard boxes, desks, and filing

cabinets. Gunfire could be heard outside but it didn't deter the search. The

documents revealed the names of offshore companies and overseas investments

of Marcos and his cronies - a late link in the paper trail that had been

started abroad by the teams of Avila , Steve Psinakis, Sonny Alvarez, Raul

Daza, Boni Gillego, and Raul Manglapus.

March 09, 1986

A Greek-American, Demetrios Roumeliotes, was stopped at the Manila

International Airport before he could leave with eight large envelopes

stuffed with jewelry that he admitted belonged to Imelda - valued at US$4.7

million.

March 15, 1986

Ernie Maceda, Minister of Natural Resources, revealed today that

some 7 to 14 tons of Philippine gold are sold to the Binondo Central Bank

annually and then smuggled to Sabah , Malaysia - this gold being part of

some 20 tons produced by 200,000 panners all over the country. Maceda's

query was whether part of the gold they produced was siphoned to the

"invisible gold hoard of Ms. Imelda R. Marcos."

"We deliver to the Central Bank," the miners said. "If it happened

(the siphoning), it happened in the Central Bank."

Is it true that Marcos propagated the Yamashita myth to hide the

fact that he looted the Central Bank, that its gold bars were melted down

and recast in odd-size bars to make them look old (how does gold look old,

anyway?).

Marcos claimed that he "received the surrender of Gen. Yamashita"

after a battle with his guerrilla outfit. History has recorded that

Yamashita surrendered to Lt. Co. Aubrey Smith Kenworthy and that there was

no battle. Yamashita's peaceful surrender had been arranged at least two

weeks before the event.

In one entry in Marcos' diary he noted, "I often wonder what I will

be remembered for in history. Scholar? Military hero.?" In a supreme irony,

he did achieve what he so vainly sought - lasting fame - but not in the way

he envisioned:

The largest human rights case in history - 10,000 victims.

Guinness Book of Records - the world's greatest thief.

The largest monetary award in history - $22 billion..

September 30, 1986

Questioned by Philippine and US lawyers about his hidden wealth,

Marcos took the Fifth Amendment 197 times. Imelda followed suit - 200 times.



December 1989

An American jury found the Marcos estate liable for $15 million in

the killing of anti-Marcos activists Gene Viernes and Silme Domingo.

Manglapus, Psinakis, Gillego and other erstwhile exile oppositionists

testified at the trial.

November 04, 1991 Today, a Sunday, the circus came to town. The

Swiss Federal Tribunal had ruled the year before that the Philippine

government must comply with the European Convention o Human Rights,

especially due process. There had to be a lawsuit filed within one year.

Thus, the solicitor general's office filed all sorts of cases against Imelda

and the government had to allow her to return to answer the charges.

"I come home penniless," she tearfully said on arrival. She then

repaired to her suite at the Philippine Plaza Hotel which cost $2,000 a day

and rented sixty rooms for her entourage - American lawyers, American

security guards and American PR firms.

December 1991

The Central Bank had accumulated losses of Php324 billion in the

Special Accounts.

November 30, 1992

The Central Bank; losses were Php561 billion and climbing. Cuisia

asked that the CB be restructured. Sen. Romulo asked to see the 1983 audit

of the international reserves. He couldn't get a copy. It was "restricted" .



January 05, 1993

Imelda didn't show up for the scheduled signing of a new PCGG

agreement. She kept vacillating on the terms and conditions - demanding she

be allowed to travel abroad for thirty-three days to confer with bank

officials in Switzerland , Austria , Hong Kong and Morocco to work out the

transfer of the frozen funds.

Actually she was hoping a guy she had authorized, J..T.Calderon,

would be able to move the funds just as the order was lifted, before the

government had a chance to transfer them to Manila . When the government

discovered the authority, all negotiations with Imelda were halted and her

requests for travel suspended.

August 10, 1993

Georges Philippe, a Swiss lawyer of Imelda, wrote today a

confidential letter to the Marcoses' old Swiss lawyer, Bruno de Preux, who

handled almost all of the Marcos family's hidden accounts in Switzerland .

Philippe requested de Preux for the status of:

A $750 million account with United Mizrahi Bank in Zurich ;

Various currency and gold deposits at the Union Bank of Switzerland

, at Kloten airport and at Credit Suisse;

A $356 million account (now in escrow and worth almost $600 million)

which was being claimed by the PCGG.

1994

The human rights jury awarded the victims $1.2 billion in exemplary

damages, then $766.4 million in compensatory damages a year after that, for

a total of $1.964 billion. Two days after, another $7.3 million was awarded

to twenty-one Filipinos in a separate lawsuit.

1995

The US Supreme Court upheld the $1.2 billion judgment.

March 29, 1995

The Swiss Parliament passed a law (an amendment to a previous act)

that removed the need for a final judgment of criminal conviction of the

accused (such as the Marcoses) in the case of criminally acquired assets

which could now therefore be returned to claimants (such as the Philippine

government) by Swiss court order.

July 1996

In part because of the torture of Roger Roxas, $22 billion was

awarded to his Golden Budha Corporation.

December 10, 1997

The Swiss Supreme Court promulgated a landmark decision that took

into account the March 1995 Swiss Parliament act and the fact that new

criminal cases had been filed against Imelda Marcos. The court held that

there was no need for any criminal proceeding; that a civil or

administrative proceeding would suffice, and the Marcos Swiss deposits which

had been "criminally acquired" can be returned to the Philippines in

deference to the final judgment of the Philippine court as to the ownership

of these deposits.

The Swiss court also announced that the interest and reputation of

Switzerland was at stake if it would become a haven for money launderers

laundering money obtained by crime. Therefore, in the case of the Marcos

deposits, because "the illegal source of the assets in this case cannot be

doubted" the Swiss court ordered that the money be returned to the

Philippines to be held in escrow account in the PNB to await the judgment of

the Sandiganbayan in the forfeiture case.

By the way, in January 17, 1975 a secret decree not made public

until after the Edsa insurrection was signed by Marcos stating that in the

event he became incapacitated or died, power would be turned over to Imelda.

On June 7, 1975, in his own handwriting, Marcos amended the January 17th

decree and clarified imelda's role as chairperson of committee with

presidential powers.

In February 1979, Imelda was named chairman of the cabinet

committee, composed of all ministries, to launch the BLISS (Bagong Lipunan

Sites and Services) program, an ambitious attempt to centralize control of

all economic and social development. She assumed responsibility for the "11

needs of Man" codified in her ministry's mufti-year Human Settlements Plan,

1978-2000. By 1986, the number of Filipinos living below the poverty line

doubled from 18 million in 1965 to 35 million. And the ecologic al balance

of the country had degraded from 75 % to 27% forest cover remaining - with

39 million acres of forest falling victim to rampant logging. This was

BLISS.

She was head of the Metro Manila Commission, which by year-end 1985

had managed to accumulate debts of Php 1.99 billion (which included $100

million in foreign loans) in its ten years of existence. Imelda had

accomplished nothing and left the people embittered and even more

disillusioned.

In September 1992 Marcos was found guilty of violating the human

rights of 10,000 victims. The ruling occurred just after a judge found Imee

Marcos-Manotoc guilty of the torture and murder of Archimedes Trajano, a 21

year old engineering student at Mapua who had the temerity to ask Imee after

a speech she gave whether the Kabataang Barangay (a national youth group)

"must be headed by the president's daughter?"

Imee and brother Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos, Jr. have been active

in the political scene.. Bongbong, who finished 3 terms as Ilocos Norte

governor, is now running for Senator under Presidential bet, Manny Villar's

senatorial slate.. he's been quoted as saying that if given a chance, he'd

like to run for President one day...(gads) .

May 25, 2010

Bongbong is now a Senator, Imelda is Governor of Ilocos Norte and

Imee is in Congress. The MARCOSES are back in full force thanks to our

"despicable amnesia" as aptly described by the eminent writer, F. Sionil

Jose.

Excuse me po, i like to throw up!