Rating: FALSE
Why we checked: Voluminous records indicate that the Marcoses squirreled away wealth into personal accounts at the expense of the Filipino people. To deny such is to deny the historical fact, and to deny history is to open the possibility of the worst of it repeating.
A claim sent to us through our tipline said that Imelda Marcos’s acquittal over the dollar salting accusations levied (https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/…/sc-upholds-imelda…) against her indicates that the Marcoses did not steal from the people of the Philippines.
This is false.
The acquittal of Imelda does not acquit the Marcoses of the estimated 5 to 10 billion USD worth of total cash siphoned away by the late Ferdinand Marcos Sr. The Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) has as of late in 2020 recovered some P174.2 billion worth of ill-gotten wealth, aiming to recover another P125 billion (https://www.rappler.com/…/breakdown-billions-recovered…/). The remaining P125.98 billion worth of wealth is still under litigation (https://www.rappler.com/…/pcgg-must-never-stop-hundred…). It specifically only acquits Imelda, not her late husband. It also only acquits her of one specific charge, and many others are levied against her and her family.
There are many records, both local (https://www.cnnphilippines.com/…/sandiganbayan-marcos… ; https://newslab.philstar.com/31-years-of…/never-convicted) and international (https://www.theguardian.com/…/philippines-seizes-marcos… ; https://www.afr.com/…/where-did-ferdinand-marcos-hide…), documenting varying pieces of the wealth acquired by the Marcoses over the course of their time in power, stashed away in international accounts.
The official U.S. Customs record of when the Marcoses fled to the United States at the height of the EDSA revolution indicates that the couple brought some 15 million USD worth of loot with them (https://www.theguardian.com/…/10bn-dollar-question…), a tall order for a man whose official salary only amounts to an annual 13,500 USD converted.
This is also ignoring all the other criticisms levelled against the Marcos administration, from high unemployment rates, economic downturn, massive corruption, and human rights abuses (http://www.theoverholtgroup.com/…/The-Rise-and-Fall-of…).
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