Senate panel wants PCGG list of seized items

MANILA, Philipines — The Senate blue ribbon committee has asked the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) to produce a list of “recovered items placed in the vault of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas” as an apparent first step to determine whether the original documents that would prove the existence of ill-gotten wealth of the Marcos family are kept there.

The panel chaired by Sen. Richard Gordon also asked the PCGG if it was possible for the blue ribbon committee to conduct an ocular inspection of the vault. The committee asked the PCGG to reply by March 2.

The one-page letter signed by lawyer Rodolfo Noel S. Quimbo, Director General of the Blue Ribbon Oversight Office Management, does not contain the words “Marcos” or “Marcoses.”

He told the Inquirer in a text message the request was part of efforts to determine the PCGG’s “performance accountability” and the need to explain the succession of losses it has suffered in the Sandiganbayan.

Gordon, blue ribbon chair, answered “definitely” when asked whether the Marcos ill-gotten cases were among the several reasons for the request.

The Sandiganbayan, in at least four cases decided since late 2019, has repeatedly chastised PCGG lawyers for using photocopies of original documents in their submissions to the antigraft court.

Solicitor General Jose Calida blamed this situation on the late Jovito Salonga, saying he lost the originals contained in an attache case snatched from him in New York in 1986 during his stint as first PCGG chair.