DON?T CELEBRATE JUST YET, A Filipino lawyer Saturday chided government officials after the United States Supreme Court junked a Hawaii court decision awarding to human rights victims the $35-million account held by a US firm for the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos.

Rod Domingo Jr., lawyer for more than 9,000 Filipino human rights victims, said the decision did not award the funds to the Philippine government, on the contrary, it reverted it to Merrill Lynch, the company holding the funds.

?It didn?t say the money is going back to the Philippines,?? Domingo said in a phone interview. ?It?s going back to the original owner, which is Merrill Lynch. But it didn?t say who is entitled to this.??

According to Domingo, the Philippine government did not present evidence to back its claim to the money during the trial.

?The republic will not get the money because the republic does not have a judgment against the money. It did not submit evidence in court that it?s entitled to it,?? he said.

The US high court ruled on Thursday that the Hawaii court erred when it allowed 9,539 human rights victims to file a suit to recover the $35-million Merrill Lynch fund.

This overturned the June 2006 ruling of a federal judge in Hawaii that the victims were entitled to the ill-gotten money.

Commissioner Narciso Nario of the Presidential Commission on Good Government said the government expected the money to be turned over to it in a few days, adding that it would be used to fund the land reform program.

Marcos in 1972 set up the $35-million account with the Merrill Lynch brokerage firm and then transferred some $2 million to Arelma S.A., a Panamanian shell corporation, which invested the money with Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Inc. in New York.

The account is part of Marcos? so-called hidden wealth being claimed by several parties, among them, the human rights victims and the Philippine government.

Domingo said the Philippine government would have a tough time recovering the funds in the US.

To recover the funds, it has to file a case with the Sandiganbayan, and if it wins, go to the US to get it enforced, the lawyer said.

?They will have to start a new case. I believe the PCGG sequestration efforts have lapsed. So that money is floating. It will not go to the republic,?? he said.

Domingo said he and the rights victims? team of American lawyers, led by Robert Swift, were still studying their options, including filing a motion to reconsider the US SC decision.

?We have to take it as it is, but all is not lost,?? he said.

During his visit to the Philippines last month, Swift said that if the victims lost the case in the US SC, they could still go after the money by filing a claim for execution.