Posted at 11:27 a.m., Thursday, February 10, 2005
Philippine president says Marcos money used legally
Associated Press
MANILA, Philippines — The Philippine government admitted today that it has spent some of late dictator Ferdinand Marcos' $683 million in Swiss bank deposits that have been transferred to the national treasury."All public money is spent according to the law and I'm sure the (Department of Budget and Management) and the (Department of Agrarian Reform) will be able to explain where they spent their money there," President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo told reporters.
Opposition members of Congress have called for a formal inquiry into the status of the money, with others demanding proof that none was spent for Arroyo's election campaign last year.
Under present law, all alleged ill-gotten wealth recovered from the Marcoses must fund land reform.
Arroyo added she was committed to compensating more than 9,500 Marcos human rights victims. Her spokesman, Ignacio Bunye, said Tuesday that Arroyo had committed $200 million of the Marcos funds for that purpose.
"The funds for this is intact and to say that the fund has been depleted for partisan ends is malicious," he added in a statement today.
Interest in the Marcos wealth heightened following a ruling last Friday by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that American courts may not overrule a decision by another country's supreme court.
The decision effectively excluded the Swiss accounts, the largest assets recovered from the Marcoses, from being used by the U.S. District Court in Hawai'i in enforcing its 1995 decision to award $2 billion to more than 9,500 Filipinos who won a class action lawsuit for human rights violations under Marcos.
