Philippine Government backs Imelda on her Jewels
This article written by Macon Ramos-Araneta one of many reporters for PhilNews.com. The story is about Imelda Marcos jewelries and how the Philippine Government is backing her request as it was not included in the original request to have all things that was taken from the filipino people! How could you NOT include that is rightfully belongs to the filipino people! Read the whole story below…to all my filipino friends, or whatever your nationality, after reading the story, please tell me what you think of it?
By Macon Ramos-Araneta
IN what could be the biggest birthday gift ever, the Office of the Solicitor General now supports the claim of Imelda Marcos, who turned 80 last week, that the government’s forfeiture case against her family never included $7 million worth of jewelry that the state confiscated in 1986.
Mrs. Marcos, who says she is too poor to pay the travel bond when she needs to fly abroad for medical treatment, seeks to reclaim the jewelry.
In a 20-page motion dated June 24, Solicitor General Agnes Devanadera, Assistant Solicitor General John Emmanuel Madamba, State Solicitor Magnolia Velez, and Associate Solicitor Moses Florendo confirmed that the so-called Roumeliotes and Hawaii Collections were not covered by Civil Case 0141.
Devanadera, who is also acting justice secretary, had initially balked at her predecessor’s suggestion that the jewelry collections were not covered by the government’s case against the Marcoses.
The Roumeliotes collection, the biggest and most expensive of the three, was seized from Greek national Demetriou Roumeliotes, a friend of the Marcoses, at the Manila International Airport on March 1, 1986. It is still being kept in the Bangko Sentral’s vaults.
The United States Customs Service, meanwhile, confiscated the Hawaii Collection from the Marcoses when they landed in Honolulu after they fled the Philippines at the height of the Edsa People Power Revolt that toppled the Marcos regime.
In the June 24 motion that was sent by post and received by the Sandiganbayan’s First Division on Monday, government lawyers sought a partial summary judgment only over the Malacañang collection.
They pointed out that the anti-graft court had in fact declared that the two more valuable Marcos jewelry collections were not covered by the civil case against the Marcoses.
They insisted that only the set known as the Malacañang Collection worth an estimated $110,055 to $153,089 was mentioned in the ill-gotten-wealth case.
Items in the Malacañang collection were found on Feb. 25, 1986, abandoned by the Marcos family and were turned over to the Central Bank on March 1, 1986.
But the Solicitor General asked the anti-graft court to consider the total value of all the jewelry among other ill-gotten assets already forfeited in favor of the government, particularly since Mrs. Marcos had claimed ownership of the Malacañang and Hawaii collections and had demanded their return.
The solicitor general also invoked the Supreme Court declaration that the lawful income of the Marcoses during their stay in government only amounted to $304,372.43, which “demonstrates manifest and gross disparity” with the value of the jewelry collections alone.
Based on the 1991 valuation of auction house Christie, Manson and Woods International Inc., the Roumeliotes, Malacañang and Hawaii Collections were worth between $5,313,575 and $7,112,879.
