Ilocos Norte Gov. Imee Marcos on Friday welcomed the House of Representatives’ approval of a bill abolishing the Presidential Commission on Good Government, the agency tasked to recover the billions of dollars plundered by her father, the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos.
She said the bill’s approval was a “welcome development,” and that it was long overdue because the agency was supposed to exist for only a year.
Earlier this week, lawmakers approved House Bill 7376 or the proposed “Office of the Solicitor General Charter” on final reading.
It seeks to abolish the PCGG and the Office of the Government Corporate Counsel and to put the two agencies under the Office of the Solicitor General.
A counterpart bill from the Senate needs to be passed for the measure to be forwarded for bicameral consultations. A consolidated bill must then be finalized.
“President [Corazon] Aquino’s law says the PCGG should only last for a year. Why it lasted for more than 30 years is really a mystery,” Marcos said.
Still, there is no mention of the PCGG’s one-year existence in the executive order of the late President Corazon Aquino that created the agency.
“We don’t even know where the sequestered properties of the supposed cronies that they claim are,” Marcos said.
The PCGG was set up after the bloodless “People Power” revolution in 1986 toppled Marcos to recover the estimated $10 billion looted by the dictator and his allies during his 20 years in power, which were marked by massive corruption and abuse.
The agency has since recovered P170 billion or about $3.4 billion in ill-gotten wealth, as well as pieces of jewelry, art and other assets.
But it is still working to find millions more, including 200 pieces of art by masters like Michelangelo and Picasso, which alleged had been purchased by the Marcos family.
