If you've ever wanted to know what a revolution looks like, feast your eyes on Manila tonight. Marcos's regime ended in 1986 when he was toppled by what is now known as the People Power Revolution. The Filipino government has estimated that the amount the Marcos family pilfered was between $5 billion and $10 billion. So this is just graft on an absolutely massive unheard of scale. Marcos declared martial law in 1972, closed newspapers, jailed political foes, turned parliament into a rubber stamp. The Marcos regime was very
concerned about dissidence, so the security forces are tasked with arresting the dissidents, torturing them for information. Oftentimes, the victim
would be summarily executed. A nation took to the streets tonight to celebrate its victory. A dictator had fallen. The
people conquered his palace. Reagan, who was president at this time, actually offered Marcos asylum in the U.S. And so when Marcos did ultimately decide to step down in February of 1986, Reagan sent two planes to cart Marcos and 90 members of his entourage, along with millions of
dollars worth of loot. It is time to come to an understanding with both the government and Marcoses to compensate the human rights victims. In 1992, after years of building the case, the Marcos class action
finally went to trial. The jury in Hawaii ultimately
held Marcos responsible. The judgment in total
was almost $2 billion, which was astronomical. It's been a long fight to this point, but we're going to continue
to fight to the end. We knew at the outset that it was gonna be a very risky litigation. At that point, what they
had was just a number on a piece of paper and
actually turning it into money for the class was gonna be
a much harder challenge. My name is Haley Cohen Gilliland, and I am an independent
journalist based in Los Angeles. We cannot succeed without
the support of our people. So Ferdinand Marcos ran the
Philippines for 21 years, and he first blazed into
the presidency in 1965. He was a remarkably charismatic figure. He was a wonderful orator. He had a beautiful wife
who was very elegant and had a gorgeous singing voice, and she would regale crowds
at his campaign rallies. Now everybody seems to be involved in the destiny not only of himself but of the entire content
of the entire nation, and this is what we have
been hoping and praying for. His first term was really promising. He invested really
widely in infrastructure and urban beautification and
especially rural development, and so his base of
followers grew and grew. Then in his second term, he started to run into some problems, allegations of corruption,
growing poverty, and simultaneously, some
separatist guerrilla groups, violent groups, started
to pop up in the country. Ferdinand Marcos at this
point takes advantage of the advent of these
groups to declare martial law and essentially rule
the country by decree. I have received hundreds and hundreds of telegrams from all
corners of the Philippines, congratulating you and incidentally me for the proclamation of martial law. And all the while Filipino citizens were being tortured and imprisoned, the Marcoses would spend
really brazenly and lavishly. So they amassed dozens
of luxury properties all over the Philippines and around the world. Then in 1986, Ferdinand Marcos
decided to call an election. Marcos! Marcos! By all accounts, Marcos
fixed that election, and when that became clear, that unleashed massive
protests around the country. Millions of Filipinos
flooded into the streets, demanding that Marcos step down. And ultimately in that case, the U.S. finally said, "Enough is enough," and encouraged Marcos
to step down as well. But they didn't completely
cut support because Reagan, who was president at this time, actually offered Marcos asylum in the U.S. And so when Marcos did ultimately decide to step down in February of 1986, Reagan sent two planes to cart Marcos and 90 members of his entourage, along with millions of
dollars worth of loot, diamonds and cash, some of which they carried
out in diaper boxes. Reagan sent planes to cart
those people and assets to Honolulu where Marcos
was welcomed with asylum. My name's Robert Swift. Most people call me Bob. I'm a litigator. I do complex litigation, and I've been doing that
for almost 48 years. At the time of the revolution
in the Philippines, there was a great deal
of publicity as well as information that
various human rights groups have collected about human
rights abuses committed by the Marcos regime. And my initial intention was
to bring individual cases, but when I learned of the
enormity of the abuses, I decided that it was worthwhile to try bringing a class action. And the way that he did that was using this very rarely used statute called the Alien Tort Statute, and that statute was
first enacted in 1789. It's only a couple of sentences, but it essentially allows
non-U.S. citizens to sue people for violations of
international law in U.S. court. About 10,000 Filipino people signed on to become a part of this class action, which is absolutely a massive class. It is time to compensate
the human rights victims. The first named plaintiff
was a college-age girl by the name of Lilioso Hilao. She had written some
articles in the student press which were not flattering to the Marcoses or the Marcos regime. She was arrested by military, taken to a military detention center where she was interrogated. When she was uncooperative, the military poured muriatic
acid down her throat, and she died from asphyxiation. Another example is an individual by the name of Mariano Pimentel. Pimentel had been a
political leader in Mindanao. He'd been arrested several times. He was finally released from detention after more than six months, and on his way back to his province, military members in a Jeep stopped him, took him to a sugarcane
field, had him dig a grave. They then buried him up to his neck, and before they filled in the soil, they broke a leg and broke an arm so that he wouldn't be
able to dig himself out. They then put the soil back in
and buried him up to his neck and they figured they would
let the ants do the rest. He survived because there
were several children who had been hiding in the sugarcane field who saw him and dug him
out, and he later emigrated to the United States where I met him. In addition, the present
state has the duty to uphold the need to
recompense its own victims. In 1992, after years of building the case, the Marcos class action finally
went to trial in Hawaii, and the jury in Hawaii ultimately
held Marcos responsible for the abuses and torture that had occurred under his regime. So in 1994, Swift asked
the jury for $1 billion, which represented $100,000 per victim, which he felt was appropriate amount. Well, I don't know that no other lawyer had ever asked a jury
for a billion dollars. However, our case is unique in that we really supported that number through the enormity of the
abuses that had occurred. And the amount that the
jury ultimately awarded to the Marcos class
totaled almost two billion. That was astronomical figure, an absolutely unheard of figure. It was the largest ever personal
injury judgment in history. So immediately upon receiving
the monetary judgements in 1994 and 1995, Swift got to work and started assessing what
things they could try to claim. This was very challenging in part because the Philippines' courts did not recognize the U.S. judgment, and so they couldn't go after
any assets in the Philippines. They had to go after assets elsewhere. In effect, I was limited to executing on whatever Marcos' assets
were in the United States, and of course, the
Marcoses weren't willing to testify as to that. I took their depositions several times, and they claimed they
didn't know anything. Of course, that was false. So the turning point as it relates to collections was between 2000 and 2010. And essentially, what happened was there was an oil investor in Texas
by the name of Alan Meeker, and he found some
attractive parcels of land that he was interested in purchasing. But for the life of him,
the way that he describes it was he couldn't find the darn owner. And as he was doing due
diligence on this land, he remembered a rumor that he
had heard when he was younger that Ferdinand Marcos had
actually purchased a bunch of oil producing lands in Texas. These lands proved to be very valuable and ultimately was able
to settle that litigation for $10 million. So Swift was absolutely overjoyed at the prospect of finally
having enough money to distribute to the class members who had waited for so many decades to see anything after the judgements came. But the challenges were
still very great in terms of how the money would
actually get distributed. So while I had 10,000
checks with names on them, many of the people had died. By that, I mean more than 20%. So the process was
laborious and much slower than I would've liked,
but it was very effective, and it was also gratifying. The faces of the people
expressing their gratitude were enough of a reward that I felt good about what we were doing, and I knew that it was gonna benefit them. I would often ask people
frequently through an interpreter, "How are you going to use the money?" And I was told that they would use it to put a cemetery stone by the
church for their loved one, or they would send their
children to school, or they would simply buy food. The older people would use the money to buy prescription drugs that they couldn't otherwise afford. 10 years, I'm starting to rise again. Now like a phoenix,
hopefully, the truth will come from the ashes of what was done to us. Ferdinand Marcos and
his family were exiled from the Philippines in the 1980s, but subsequent to his death,
they were allowed to return. And since then, they have managed to really regain the popularity that they enjoyed during his term. Congratulations, Senator Imee Marcos. Well, it's outrageous that the nation allows this to happen. Will I say sorry for the power generation? Will I say sorry for the
highest literacy rate in Asia? What am I to say sorry about? In the Philippines, as in other countries, elections are frequently won by those who can more readily distribute money during the election process. The Marcoses have had access
to the monies acquired and hidden by Ferdinand Marcos. The richest is Senator Ferdinand Marcos, Jr., who declared a net worth of
more than 400 million pesos. Bongbong Marcos, his son,
is running for president in 2022 and is polling quite well. I'm confident that some of the money that was acquired by Ferdinand
Marcos and hidden is going to find its way into the 2022
election in the Philippines.
If I had a time machine....
Or
1986's $10 billion has the buying power of 2021's $24,789,781,021.90
"I'm confident that some of the money that was acquired by Ferdinand Marcos and hidden is going to find its way in the 2022 election in the Philippines." -- Robert Swift (Lawyer for Martial Law victims).
Don't be surprised if the Marcos family will use the looted taxpayer money to get back to power.
Be aware of your history Filipinos, or you can become victims again of the same family of thieves.