NEW YORK?Robert A. Swift met with every post-Marcos Philippine president, except Benigno Aquino III, in connection with the cases he was litigating for the compensation of victims of the Marcos regime.

Mild curiosity was the best he could get. ?Mrs. Corazon Aquino asked about the case,? Swift said, ?because her husband?s driver had been among those harmed.?

The worst was hostility from then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. ?No president thus far has been interested in justice for the victims,? Swift said. He sent Mr. Aquino a letter and has received no response yet.

Swift?s rival, ironically, has been the Philippine government itself, through the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) which claims every discovered Marcos asset.

Through PCGG intervention, $627 million in Swiss bank deposits (including interests) were transferred to a Philippine National Bank escrow account in 1998, ostensibly for land reform implementation, even as pleas for alms for burials of victims who passed away occurred periodically. The amount was officially turned over to the Philippine government in 2000.

Collecting on the $2-billion judgment against the estate of Ferdinand Marcos has been as slow and tedious as ending the dictatorship itself.

?There are political undercurrents,? said Swift, who successfully litigated the tort case in the Hawaii Federal Court in 1995 on behalf of the victims of martial law.

Marcos assets in Hawaii, amounting to $1.5 million, were transferred to the Class Settlement Fund, and $750,000 awarded Swift would help capitalize 20 litigations on four continents.

Protests over fees

A $200-million settlement Swift had negotiated with the Marcoses inspired protests over legal fees. ?But it would have given each claimant around $15,000,? he said in an interview.

The lawyer had simply wanted ?to create jurisprudence? when he began. ?I conceived (it) in 1986 and contacted (the late Jose) Mari Velez, himself a lawyer, who had links with Philippine human rights organizations. He agreed to be my co-counsel.?

Swift said that most advocates and lawyers focused on rehabilitation. ?I was the only one then to stress compensation.? It brought him renown and explained why, alone among the lawyers in the Marcos tort case, he had been indefatigable in seeking judgment implementation.

Settlement fund

Swift is also known for his role in the $7.5-billion Holocaust settlement fund. The Marcos case ?architecture? informed that fund?s creation, he said.

But whereas the Holocaust claimants have drawn compensation, those in the Marcos case haven?t.

First collection

The Texas settlement offer represents the first collection that would allow distribution to claimants?around P40,000 each. But 86 people have filed objections, ?on spurious grounds,? Swift said.

To go into litigation over the 4,000 acres (about 162 hectares) would be dicey. ?Our evidence is circumstantial,? he said.

Since the land value was only $78 million?culled from an inch-thick independent appraisal of each parcel of land?the $10-million offer seemed reasonable. ?This case alone took six years,? Swift said.

Lead plaintiffs

Swift chooses lead plaintiffs for each case based on who would fit the court: a US citizen, a resident of the state hearing the case ?

Thus, each lawsuit has a different principal plaintiff who represented himself and the class claimants, now numbering 7,500 from the original 9,537.

The reduction came from the Hawaii court?s mandated synchronization of the 1993 and 1999 claim forms, and removal of cases occurring post-martial law.

The Hawaii court stipulated direct distribution to claimants, after Swift learned that certain advocates had asked for a 15-percent cut.

Bone of contention

?Some advocates and human rights organizations believe they can handle money better than the claimants themselves,? he said wryly. ?This is the bone of contention: Who controls the apportionment and distribution of compensation.?

Swift held that the Hawaii Federal Court would be the best agent.

?Class counsel negotiates and settles agreements, to avoid one claimant or group of claimants from scuttling opportunities for all claimants,? he said.

Eighty-seven people did file objections to the Texas settlement, including principal plaintiff, Romulo del Prado, who sent both a withdrawal of consent and an explanation to Swift, saying he had to endure two days of pressure from five other victims. ?This is crazy,? Del Prado wrote.

Two more cases

Swift is marshalling two more cases?in Singapore worth $23 million and in New York worth $28 million. It has been difficult, he admitted.

?You have to find the money first. And the Marcoses have high-priced lawyers,? he said. Linn & Helms, for one, was paid $5 million.

Collection had also been dogged by unverifiable reports that some claimants had reached private settlements with the Marcos family.

In the Holocaust case, Swift had said that expecting litigation lawyers to work without or at minimal pay for victims would deepen their neglect of human rights cases.

Conundrum

Some had argued that legal costs and individual compensation should be more equitable. Eleven lawyers in a Holocaust case, for instance, charged $52 million while claimants, numbering in the tens of thousands, got $5,000 each.

Twenty-four years after Edsa I, this conundrum intensifies, as litigation for human rights violations seems increasingly the trend, in the absence of other ways to effect justice for victims: the meaning of a million dollars to a world-class lawyer versus that of a thousand dollars to a person in need of funeral funds.

(Editor?s Note: In the interest of full disclosure, Rosca was among the original claimants but doesn?t know and hasn?t asked if she is in the new database.)