PCGG says it has recovered over P172-B worth of ill-gotten wealth in 32 years

Battling extinction, the Presidential Commission on Good Governance (PCGG) on its 33rd anniversary announced that it has recovered a total of P172.66 billion since its creation in 1986 up to 2018.

Last year, the House of Representatives passed a resolution abolishing the body, but the Senate countered it, extending the life of the agency tasked to recover the ill-gotten wealth of the Marcos family.

Early this week, President Rodrigo Duterte questioned whether the recovered assets indeed belonged to the Marcoses.

For the fiscal year 2018, the Commission's total cash recoveries, interest income, and proceeds on the cash redemption value of government securities and its time deposits amounted to P1.73 billion—a lion's share of which came from the account of the Coco Levy Fund.

Further, the PCGG noted that in its more than three decades of operations, the Commission has provided "substantial funding" for the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) through the recovered ill-gotten wealth.

"The PCGG remitted the net proceeds of the disposal of surrendered assets to the Bureau of Treasury for the account of CARP from 1987 to present the total
amount of P78,666,469,177.45," it said.

PCGG claimed that CARP-related projects such as the construction of farm to market roads, bridges, irrigation facilities, acquisition of post-harvest facilities, rural electrification, potable water supply, and creation of Agrarian Reform Communities were implemented across the country with the help of such remittances.

Over 3,000 hectares of agricultural lands in Cavite, Laguna, and Biliran have also been recovered and transferred by the PCGG to the local governments which led the distribution to legitimate farmer beneficiaries.

The PCGG is mandated to "recover the ill-gotten wealth accumulated by the former President Ferdinand Marcos, his immediate family, relatives, subordinates and close associates whether located in the Philippines or abroad."

President Rodrigo Duterte, on the other hand, recently raised doubts on the ill-gotten wealth accusations against Marcos.

“Until now you have not proven anything except to sequester and sell. Hindi mo nga sigurado kung talagang kay Marcos ba ‘yan,” he said during his speech at an event in Manila on Tuesday.

Some senatorial candidates countered the President's misgivings by citing the previous Supreme Court rulings which declared as "ill-gotten" the wealth that Marcos has supposedly amassed during his tenure. —LDF, GMA News