CEBU CITY — What sets people apart from swine is the capacity to blush.
“I will go wash/And when my face is fair, you shall perceive/Whether I blush or no,” Shakespeare wrote.
Did Imelda Marcos and daughter Irene Marcos-Araneta blush Thursday? That’s when they asked the court to reverse its January 2013 decision directing that jewelry lost, when fleeing People Power, be auctioned.
The Supreme Court, a few days earlier, “affirmed with finality its 2012 ruling forfeiting $40 million (P1.8 billion) that President Ferdinand Marcos stashed in the Panaman corporation Arelma. Ferdinand Jr and Imelda claimed that as their own. No. That belongs to Juan Q. Taxpayer, the court affirmed.
Did Madame and children blush? “Girls blush, sometimes, because they are alive/Half wishing they were dead to save the shame,” Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote.
The US Court of Appeals (9th Circuit) slammed Ferdinand Jr. and mother with a $353.6-million contempt judgement two years back.
Why? They tried to smuggle paintings and other artworks subject to court decision.
“Contumacious conduct,” the judge said in imposing a daily fine of $100,000. “Innocence is not accustomed to blush,” Jean Moliere wrote.
There are three batches of confiscated gems. One is the “Malacañang Collection,” found by 1986 People Power demonstrators when they surged into Malacanang just after the Marcoses scrammed on Chinook helicopters. That flight ended in Honolulu exile.
Thus, the second bundle of jewels are known as the “Honolulu Batch”. They were surrendered to US government, after racketeering charges were dropped. That was the subject of a US investigation in early 1973, reported Mark Fineman in Los Angeles Times. “Imelda took the Fifth Amendment more than 200 times….The hearing came just 24 hours after her husband, invoked his Fifth Amendment right 197 times during a similar deposition….”
The third, now in Bangko Sentral vaults, is the “Roumeliotes Set”– 60 gems confiscated from Greek national Demetriou Roumeliotes. A 37-carat diamond, crafted by Bulgari, is the centerpiece. “They were inside a package addressed to Imelda when seized at the Manila Internationl Airport.
Roumeliotes first denied ownership, then later changed his song, saying the gems were fakes. No, snapped reputable auction houses Sotheby’s and Christie’s.
Imelda agreed.“The jewelry was taken out of Malacañang without my knowledge, much less [with my] consent, between Feb. 26 and Feb. 27, 1986,” she said in a court petition. “They are my jewels.” Did she blush?
In between is the Supreme Court decision of July 2003. (GR No. 152154) It directed that Marcos Swiss deposits, of US$658,175,373, be “forfeited” to government.
The Swiss government returned the loot, through the efforts of the late Haydee Yorac of the PCGG. Until that decision, the Philippine National Bank held the boodle in escrow. Imelda, Imee, Irene and Ferdinand Jr. tried–but failed–to add that to their fortunes.
The International Consortium of Investigative Journalism pinpointed three Filipinos who hold secret offshore trusts in the Virgin Islands: Ilocos Norte Gov. Imee Marcos, then Rep. Joseph Victor “JV” Ejercito, and then Sen. Manuel Villar.
In the 1986 People Power uproar, Imee left behind a notebook that contained the names of her father’s dummies. Does she blush over the Marcos record?
“’Tis not on youth’s smooth cheek the blush alone, which fades so fast,” Lord Byron wrote. “But the tender bloom of heart is gone, ere youth itself be past.”
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