Lilia Quindoza Santiago will not forget the year stolen from her by the Philippines’ regime of Ferdinand Marcos, but she stands to receive compensation four decades later.
Santiago, who was among collegiate anti-Marcos activists, and other human-rights victims of the Marcos reign appear set to receive their largest compensation through a new law just signed by Philippine President Benigno Aquino III.
"I was myself manhandled," recalled the present assistant professor of Ilokano language at the University of Hawaii-Manoa. "I was slapped in the face and almost lost consciousness because the general who was the arresting officer punched me in my stomach."
That was in August 1973, after Marcos had declared martial law, and Santiago would spend the next year being held in military barracks, separated from her parents and siblings, who did not know where she was.
During that period, she remembers being subjected to "psychological torture," told to tell where other activists from past rallies and demonstrations were hiding out. Otherwise, she was told, "you’re not going to be seen and you’ll never get freedom at all." She never caved in to the torture, and she was released in August 1974 from a military base in Manila.
Last month, Aquino, whose father was assassinated during Marcos’ dictatorship after speaking out, signed into law compensation from Marcos assets of $244 million from Swiss bank accounts. Under that law, about 10,000 victims, including the 7,526 who won a class action lawsuit in federal court in Honolulu in 1995, reportedly are presumed to be registered as victims of martial law abuses and don’t have to prove their claims for compensation.
"I think it’s really about time the Philippines government recognized the human rights violations that were committed during the Marcos dictatorship," said Santiago, 64. "I think this is just right that the victims be compensated for their sacrifices."
Such compensation approved by the Philippines government is unprecedented.
"It’s a breakthrough in the sense that I think this is the first time the Philippines government has officially acknowledged that the victims are deserving of some of the ill-gotten wealth," said Gerard Finin, a senior fellow at the East-West Center who is engaged in research related to the Philippines.
Sherry Broder, the victims’ attorney in the Ho- nolulu court case, agreed that the event is important, "because it’s always been our position that the successor governments still have an obligation to the victims of human rights abuses and that the government has an obligation to investigate these abuses and make compensation.
"The registration doesn’t say exactly what people are going to get it," Broder added. "It seems that they’ve identified two groups that they’re thinking people will have a presumption."
The compensation is to come from about $600 million that the Philippine government recovered from Swiss bank accounts that Marcos hid while he was in power.
Marcos ruled the Philippines from 1965 until 1986, when he was overthrown by the "People Power" revolution and fled by U.S. Air Force plane to Hickam Air Force Base on Oahu. The revolt had been led by Corazon Aquino, widow of the murdered Benigno Aquino Jr. and mother of the Philippines’ current president.
The preparation of a lawsuit on behalf of those who were tortured, raped or detained by Marcos’ security forces began "when Marcos came to town," Broder recalled.
Marcos, his wife Imelda and their family arrived here in dramatic fashion in February 1986, taking up residence first in East Honolulu and then in Makiki Heights. His three-year exile in Hawaii often made front-page news locally and globally, and the Marcoses’ presence here stoked both ardent support and opposition from the local Filipino community.
After he died in September 1989, Ferdinand Marcos’ body lay in refrigerated state at Kaneohe’s Valley of the Temples for four years before finally being allowed back to his Ilocos Norte hometown in the Phillippines.
In 1992, a federal court jury awarded the victims $1.9 billion from the Marcos regime, but there was no doubt that collecting anything close to that amount would be difficult. More than a decade later, presiding U.S. District Judge Manuel Real found that the Marcoses had a "highly developed and sophisticated pattern and practice of concealing and secreting their assets by various methods, including aliases and corporations."
That was an understatement. The Marcos family and associates are accused of having plundered an estimated $10 billion from the Philippines. The Marcos fortune was spread throughout the world.
"The question is who are the real owners, and it was always layered in such a way that it’s been very difficult, I think, to trace it back because so much was done through intermediaries," Finin said.
The first distribution, totaling $10 million resulting in $1,000 to each of the claimants in the Honolulu case, was approved two years ago by Real in a settlement with three corporations created by Marcos cronies who owned 4,500 acres of land in Texas and Colorado.
The $244 million that will be distributed to Marcos victims through the new Philippines law comes from assets located in Switzerland, after the Philippines government sought legal assistance from Swiss authorities.
More large amounts are being sought.
Last June, New York’s highest court declined to rule on a lawsuit by Filipino human rights violations plaintiffs seeking $42 million of Marcos’ assets. Broder said attorneys for the victims have yet to consider a response to the ruling.
Broder said a court ruling in Singapore that $28 million deposited in the Singapore branch of a German bank belongs to the now privately owned Philippine National Bank, will be challenged.
In New York, the personal secretary to Marcos’ 83-year-old wife Imelda, Vilma Bautista, and two of Bautista’s nephews, were charged with conspiracy in November for trying to sell numerous valuable artworks, including a Monet painting that sold for $32 million, that had been acquired by the Marcoses. That is expected to be targeted as a source of compensation to victims.
Most of the Marcos victims to qualify for the compensation live in the Philippines. About 70 of them live in the United States and Canada, and Santiago said she is aware of four other victims residing in Hawaii.
"Some of them are still in hiding," she said.
Santiago, who moved to Hawaii in 2007, said she plans to return to the Philippines to collect her compensation within two years, which she understands is the deadline to appear in person.
