Compensation of rights victims pushed

By KRIS BAYOS and ROY C. MABASA

MANILA, Philippines — Even if the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) is starting to wind down its affairs, the agency’s advocacy to compensate human rights victims during the Martial Law will still continue.

PCGG Chairman Andres Bautista said the commission is hopeful that Congress will expedite the passage of the Human Rights Compensation Bill.

Bautista said this has gained added urgency following allegations of irregularity in the distribution of compensation among human rights victims by lawyers Rod Domingo and Bob Swift. Reports earlier said that impostors were named as among the 6,500 beneficiaries of checks amounting to $1,000 each from the proceeds of a successful litigation in the United States.

A group of human rights victims said they will investigate the possible connivance of Domingo and Swift with the impostors and bring them to justice if they are found guilty of cheating the real beneficiaries.

“The PCGG is fully supportive of efforts to compensate martial law human rights victims but such should be done in a transparent and orderly manner,” he said.

“Hence, we strongly advocate the early passage by Congress of the Human Rights Compensation bill,” he added.

The PCGG earlier lauded the President for announcing in his second State-of-the-Nation Address of the administration’s support to the Human Rights Compensation Bill.

“There’s no arguing that we need to do right by our people. We need to help ease the burden of those who suffered under the dictatorial regime,” Bautista said.

“It’s safe to say that we are all on that same page. Now, we just need to get behind our lawmakers and our President to assure them and let them hear that this, too, is what we the Filipino people want,” he added.

The Human Rights Compensation Bill, if passed, will benefit the families of some 10,000 victims of involuntary disappearances, torture, murders, rape, and harassment during the term of former President Ferdinand Marcos.

An act of Congress is necessary to compensate the human rights victims because by law, the sequestered ill-gotten wealth of the Marcoses is set aside for the implementation of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law.

Meanwhile in Honolulu, Hawaii, President Benigno Aquino III told Manila-based reporters in a sit-down interview at Hilton Hotel here prior to his return to Manila that he is no longer keen on going after the alleged ill-gotten wealth of Marcos, his family, and his so-called cronies.

He said perhaps even members of the Marcos family themselves do not really know up to what extent their reported wealth has reached.

“I’ve come across something about five books talking about Marcoses gold," said the President. "I talked to one person who was supposed to be part of their staff 20 years ago saying it was located here and there, pero until now they have not really located it."

However, the President reiterated his willingness to talk to any person who may have crucial information about the alleged ill-gotten wealth but hinted that it would just be time-consuming since evidence had to be gathered and charges would have to be filed.

“What (only) gives us some comfort here is that the Constitution recognizes that there is no prescription period where it involves the recovery of the ill-gotten wealth,” Aquino said.

Early this year, PCGG Chairman Bautista said it would take them two years to wind up their affairs and pave the way for the agency’s abolition, adding they are in the process of putting the finishing touches to a proposed law that will call for its abolition.

Before the abolition, Bautista said the PCGG would have turned over all pending litigation against the Marcos heirs and their cronies to the Department of Justice (DoJ), and their confiscated and forfeited ill-gotten assets to the Department of Finance (DoF).

“The transfers and winding down efforts shall be completed and satisfactorily accomplished within a period of two years upon the approval of the said legislative measure,” Bautista said in his letter to Aquino dated Dec. 8, 2010.

“The investigation and prosecution of cases presently being handled by and for the commission shall be transferred to the DoJ,” the PCGG chief said.


(2011-11-16/mb.com.ph)