Thirty Years Later . . . Catching Up with the Marcos-Era Crimes. Myles Garcia

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СКАЧАТЬ Enriles named their mutt dog, Adlemi—wink, wink. Reverse the spelling. It’s not known how long Adlemi lived.)

      When Enrile worked for his father’s law firm, he was assigned to handle the personal legal affairs of Ferdinand Marcos, who was senate president at the time. When Marcos was elected president in 1965, Ponce-Enrile became part of the inner ruling circle, and held a whole series of crucial and strategic positions—starting out as Undersecretary of Finance, then Acting Secretary. 1968-70, Secretary of Justice. Then as Secretary of Defense in 1970, he helped engineer the imposition of martial law by contrived justification. And then broke off from the Marcos power clique when he led a rebel group which helped oust Marcos in 1986. He then swore allegiance to the new Aquino government.

      Enrile enjoyed a parallel success track as his mentor, Ferdinand Marcos. Assets-wise, he’s right up there with top cronies Benedicto, Cuenca, D. Cojuangco and Floriendo, sticking his hand in major industries, particularly logging and like Cojuangco, the coconut levy. Ricardo Manapat devoted 42 pages (pp. 163-205) on the extent of Enrile’s empire in Some Are Smarter than Others, which I cannot detail here due to space limitations.

      Ironically, all the power and material success didn’t seem enough for Enrile. When he sat as senate president in 2014, he was charged and convicted with plunder, stemming from the pork barrel scandal. He was kept under “hospital arrest” at the Philippine National Police General Hospital at Camp Crame—the very scene of his last stand against Marcos at the People Power’s revolt in 1986.

      In August, 2015, owing to his advanced age of 91, the Philippine Supreme Court granted Enrile bail of PhP1 million, which “released” the senator. Next thing you knew there he was onstage with Bongbong Marcos, Imelda/ Adlemi Marcos, and fellow-accused plunderer, ex-president Joseph Estrada, arms upraised in full campaign mode—making for a very venal picture of hypocrisy and all looking like the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse reborn. The event was the launch of Junior’s vice-presidential candidacy for 2016.

      Jose Yao-Campos

      Like some of the other taipans, Yao-Campos originally came from Canton (now Guangzhou), China. After surviving the war as buy-and-sell trader in 1945, Campos started a small pharmacy called United Drug with partners on Sto. Cristo Street in Manila’s Chinatown district. He also Filipinized his surname to “Campos” along the way.

      Yao-Campos became one of the most trusted cronies of Marcos. Tracing a relationship starting in the 1950s, Yao served as a close financial advisor, a dependable front man, and a loyal business partner until the very end. The relationship started when Marcos was first elected congressman. Campos later became one of Marcos’ financiers in the 1965 campaign. One of Campos’ first fronting roles was as Mr. Z in the stock scam of the late 1960s called the Benguet-Bahamas Deal, each of Marcos’ fronts acquiring the code names of Mr. X, Y, and Z.

      In exchange for his loyalty, Marcos showered government support upon Campos’ companies. United Laboratories, Campos' premier asset, grew to be one of Asia’s largest pharmaceutical firms largely through this help. Campos ultimately became a very rich man, building a multimillion dollar real estate empire in Hawaii, Texas, Seattle, and Canada.

      Finally died in May, 2006. His widow, Betty, ranks #24 in Forbes’ 2015 List of the 40 Richest Filipinos.

      Alfonso D. Lim, Sr.

      One of the lesser known cronies was logger Alfonso D. Lim, Sr. Lim, a close friend of Marcos, owned Fuga Island, a 10,000-hectare island in Aparri, Cagayan. Due to his special relationship with the dictator, Lim managed to increase his timber holdings to over 630,000 hectares which the Marcos government granted under seven separate timber concessions. The only problem was the maximum allowable concession area for a timber license was 100,000 hectares. It’s not hard to figure out how that special arrangement was made and how it stayed in place—considering all the special, lucrative “deals” meted out to those close to the ruling couple.

      The Lim/Marcos case has almost come to a resolution with the indictment from the Sandiganbayan court in January 4, 2016 that found the Lims (father and son, although Senior died in 2002), the Marcoses (with the three children now named as “substitutes/heirs” to Ferdinand) guilty of illegal acquisition, and ordered that the following—the vast tracts of lands all over the country sequestered by the PCGG (with a 2006-appraised value of PhP511 million), two Cessna planes, a sea vessel owned by Sierra Madre Wood Industries Incorporated, and various assets in the name of Alfonso D. Lim—be returned to the Republic.

      The anti-graft court also found that “For one Filipino out of 55 million to own, operate or in one form or another be financially interested in more than 600,000 hectares out of a total forest land of 14 million hectares is certainly unfair, unacceptable, and unconstitutional by any standard."

      “So influential was Lim, Sr that he and Taggat Industries and sister companies (Sierra Madre Wood Industries, Inc., Pamplona Redwood Veneer Incorporated) received certain timber-related benefits without the knowledge, let alone approval, of the MNR [Ministry of Natural Resources]."

      Lucio Tan

      The perfect epitome of the self-made taipans (first generation mainland Chinese immigrants to the Philippines), Tan started out with almost nothing and rose to being one of the two richest men in his adopted country. But that success was not without controversy—tax evasion charges, lucrative friendships with presidents Marcos and Estrada which indeed landed him prime business opportunities in the country.

      Tan knew Marcos even before FM became president. But it was during the Marcos years that Tan grew phenomenally rich. In 1966, he started Fortune Tobacco, which in a dozen years, going into the martial law years, would become the country’s largest cigarette manufacturer, and the cornerstone of Tan’s business empire. Critics have charged: “It was during martial law that Tan apparently developed his extensive patronage relationship with Marcos, winning extensive tax, financing and regulatory concessions in exchange for direct cash payments and political contributions to KBL (Marcos’ political party) and its candidates.”

      During that protected period, Asia Brewery was set up in 1982, challenging the monopoly of San Miguel Corp. and therefore in direct competition with the other crony, Danding Cojuangco, who had gained control of the venerable San Miguel Brewery. It was speculated that Fortune and Asia Brewery’s quick rise to the top would not have been possible without special tax breaks from Marcos who, of course was cut in on the two big conglomerates.

      In 1984-85, two years before the Fall of the House of Marcos, Tan tried to do a Disini in acquiring residency in Austria, using the same mechanisms and politicians which secured Austrian citizenship for Disini. While money was no object in that pursuit, it didn’t work out for Tan, and he failed to secure Austrian papers.

      In 1993, Tan secured control of the country’s airline carrier Philippine Air Lines (PAL). His other businesses which flourished during martial and make up the rest of the Tan portfolio are Allied Bank, Philippine National Bank, Century Park Sheraton, Tanduay Distillers, Eton Properties, and University of the East, the biggest private university in the Philippines.

      Most of these companies were investigated and sequestered after the fall of his boss, Marcos. But in December 7, 2007, the Philippine Supreme Court curiously removed the state’s sequestration of Tan’s companies, decreeing that “there can be no question that indeed, petitioner’s orders of sequestration are void and have no legal effect.” Really? As of 2015, Tan retained his spot on the Forbes List as the Philippines’ second richest man, with assets of $5.4 billion.

      Geronimo Velasco

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