MANILA, Philippines?Nearly a quarter of a century after the fall of the Marcos regime, its surviving victims are expecting to finally obtain a ?historic closure? to their long fight for justice and compensation with the advent of a new Aquino administration.

Former Akbayan party-list Rep. Loretta Ann Rosales, chair of Claimants 1081, Wednesday said her group was confident that incoming President Benigno Aquino III would push for and eventually sign into law the P10-billion human rights victims compensation bill.

Rosales said she expected the bill to pass despite the presence of former first lady Imelda Marcos in the House of Representatives and her son, Ferdinand ?Bongbong? Marcos Jr., in the Senate.

?This is going to be historic. It?s going to be like a step toward finally getting closure to the 1986 Edsa Revolution,? Rosales said.

?It will address this culture of impunity that characterized the Arroyo and Marcos regimes,? she added.

She said the surviving Marcos victims were going to meet on Saturday to map out what they need to do under the new administration.

Blocked by Ms Arroyo

Rosales said the P10-billion compensation bill failed to pass in Congress because outgoing President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo blocked it although the Philippines had promised Switzerland to compensate the victims.

The P10 billion was taken from the Marcos ill-gotten wealth recovered from Swiss banks. Before Switzerland returned $683 million to the Philippines, it obtained a promise from the Philippine government that the victims would be compensated, Rosales said.
The 20-year Marcos regime was ousted in 1986 by a popular revolt.

?The bill passed the Senate but failed to get through the House because President Arroyo did not want it,? Rosales said.

Specific law

Congress must enact a specific law to compensate the victims because under the agrarian reform law, all recovered ill-gotten wealth from the Marcoses and their cronies should go to agrarian reform.

With Aquino now set to take the reins of power, the human rights victims expect that the compensation bill to become law, Rosales said.

?Noynoy was chair of the House committee on human rights and was supportive (of the bill). And remember, his family was a victim of martial law,? she added.

She expressed the hope that Imelda and her son would not block the bill?s passage when it is refiled in the next Congress.

?They could obstruct it but maybe Bongbong already wants to move on. If he wants to be president one day, then let it go,? she said.

Imee Marcos

Rosales said that when she was with then Ilocos Norte Rep. Imee Marcos in the House, the Marcos daughter decried the bill for denouncing her father but did not actively oppose it.

?She said she was against the bill but eventually, she did not give me any problem,? Rosales said.

She also said that the extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances that happened under the current Arroyo administration could have been avoided if the bill had been signed into law.

The bill seeks to criminalize these and other human rights abuses and would have deterred would-be perpetrators, according to Rosales.

Claimants 1081 is working double time because many of the 9,539 documented Marcos human rights victims have already died.

Landmark ruling

The victims won a landmark ruling from a US court in Hawaii in 1995 that awarded them $2 billion in damages but, up to now, they have yet to be compensated because the Philippine government also blocked their efforts to recover Marcos assets in the country and abroad.

Using the Hawaii ruling, the human rights victims are trying to get their hands on $35 million worth of Marcos funds deposited in Merrill Lynch in New York, $28 million in a bank in Singapore and some 1,680 hectares of land in Texas and Colorado that belonged to Marcos crony Jose Campos.

The Colorado and Texas properties have been estimated to be worth around $150 million because they supposedly have oil deposits.

Rod Domingo, counsel of the human rights victims, said the US appellate court hearing the Texas case had ordered the relatives and associates of Campos to give an oral deposition next week before a Mandaluyong judge.