Philippines should stop stalling human rights compensation

THE ISSUE Victims of human rights violations under the Ferdinand Marcos regime want the Philippines to stop blocking compensation.

MORE than a decade has passed since a federal jury in Honolulu awarded $2 billion to victims of the Ferdinand Marcos regime in the Philippines, but they have yet to receive a penny of it. The Philippine government has initiated a further delay by appealing a recent appellate court ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court. The clarity of legal issues should result in a quick denial by the high court to hear the case.

American lawyer Robert Swift, representing Filipinos subjected to torture, summary executions and disappearances during the Marcos reign, urged the Philippine government last week to stop blocking initial payments to the victims. Those payments would average only $2,000 to each of the 7,500 plaintiffs, most of whom are poor and live in rural areas of the Philippines.

The payments are to be made from $35 million in a Merrill Lynch account opened by Marcos in 1972. The Philippine government claims ownership of the investment because Marcos obtained it illegally. A panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the government's claim in May, refused to rehear the case later in May and turned down a rehearing before a larger panel of judges this month.

The appeals court essentially found that decisions about illicit Marcos wealth found in foreign countries should be made by courts in those countries. Marcos torture and 15-month detention victim Alfredo Mercado points out that "the money will go anyway into the national economy that at this time is facing a crisis."

While the dispute about the Merrill Lynch account continues, victims' lawyers are seeking $22 million in a Singapore bank account and 4,000 acres of real estate worth about $100 million in Colorado and Texas recorded under the name of Marcos crony Jose Y. Campos. The claims can be added to the nearly $80 million in Marcos assets at issue in courts outside of the Philippines.

One positive development has been the recent enactment by the Philippine Congress of a compensation bill after a decade of delay. President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo is expected to sign the legislation into law by the end of this year, releasing to victims as much as $200 million from Swiss bank accounts.

That seems to support the Philippine government's position that it is concerned not about compensation for victims, but about the legal precedent of foreign courts blocking its pursuit of its assets abroad. It is mistaken. The notion that a country can ignore opposition to claims of foreign assets is absurd, the legal precedent to the contrary having been well established.