Makati judge stops awarding of $2.26 B in damages to martial law victims

Senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. on Sunday lauded the decision of a Makati Regional Trial Court trashing the petition to enforce the 18-year-old judgment of the United States District Court in Hawaii that awarded compensatory and exemplary damages to human rights victims during martial law.

In a statement issue on Sunday, the son and namesake of the former dictator said that their family felt vindicated by the decision.

“We feel vindicated because the judge (Pascua) recognized the arguments that we have been making for many years now,” Marcos said, referring to the 11-page decision dated June 25, 2013 penned by Judge Bonifacio S. Pascua of National Capital Judicial Region, Branch 56 of Makati City, dismissing the petition thus: “The final judgment in the case MDL No. 840 against the estate of the late Ferdinand R. Marcos et. al. is not conclusive yet, but presumptive evidence of a right of the petitioners against the Marcos estate.”

Marcos said the petition stemmed from a verdict on February 3, 1995 by the US District Court awarding plaintiffs Priscila C Mijares et. al. $2,260,000,000 as compensatory and exemplary damages after they won in the Class Action MDL 840. On May 21, 1997, the plaintiffs filed a petition for enforcement of the foreign judgment here in the Philippines.

“In his decision, Pascua said the plaintiffs have not presented any new evidence and that they anchored their cause of action in Hawaii upon the Torture of Victims Protection Act (TVPA), which was signed by President George H. W. Bush on March 12, 1992,” Marcos said in the statement.

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Short Video: Marcos legacy still haunts Philippine human rights victims

Noynoy Stays Neutral On Marcos Burial In Libingan Ng Mga Bayani

President Aquino Wednesday said he would inhibit himself from the decision on whether the late President Ferdinand Marcos could be buried at the Libingan ng mga Bayani in Taguig City.

The President instead said he would ask a government official "who has less personal attachment" to look into the matter recently proposed by the son of the late strongman, Senator Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos.

“Whatever I will say will be bias so I’m thinking of inhibiting myself from deciding the matter,” the President told reporters after meeting senior military officials in Camp Aguinaldo, Quezon City.

"Anything I say on the matter, people might say, was decided on a subjective basis rather than on an objective basis and we would want to spare our country from that,” said the President, son of the freedom heroes the late Senator Benigno Aquino Jr. and President Corazon Aquino.

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Ferdinand Emmanuel Edralin Marcos (September 11, 1917 – September 28, 1989) was the tenth President of the Philippines from 1965 to 1986. He was a lawyer, member of the Philippine House of Representatives (1949–1959) and a member of the Philippine Senate (1959–1965). He was Senate President from 1963-1965. He claimed to have led a guerrilla force called Ang Maharlika in northern Luzon during the Second World War, although this is doubted. As Philippine president and strongman, his greatest achievement was in the fields of infrastructure development and international diplomacy. However, his administration was marred by massive authoritarian corruption, despotism, nepotism, political repression, and human rights violations. He benefited from a large personality cult in the Philippines during his regime.  In 1983, his government was implicated in the assassination of his primary political opponent, Benigno Aquino, Jr. The implication caused a chain of events, including a tainted presidential election that served as the catalyst for the People Power Revolution in February 1986 that led to his removal from power and eventual exile in Hawaii. It was later alleged that he and his wife Imelda Marcos had moved billions of dollars of embezzled public funds to the United States, Switzerland, and other countries, as well as into alleged corporations during his 20 years in power.