Marcos victims to get $10M

Martial law class suit members will get the $10 million settlement paid by the buyer of former first lady Imelda Marcos’ ill-gotten 1899 Claude Monet masterpiece beginning Jan. 27, their lawyers said on Monday.

Each member will get P50,000 (equivalent of $1,175) as part of the compensation out of the $2 billion judgment awarded by a US district court in Hawaii in 1995 to the 9,539 victims of human rights abuses during martial law.

In a statement, lawyer Rod Domingo Jr. said the distribution would be conducted over eight weeks.

The distribution will be done in person and not by mail, he said, so they can be sure the class suit members will actually receive their shares.

“This is the second distribution already. We had a distribution of $1,000, or P43,200, to each victim in 2011,” he told the Inquirer in a press conference on Monday.

“This is a victory for the victims, and it’s very timely since (on Tuesday) we will be celebrating Human Rights Day,” Domingo said.

Last July, Domingo and his American counterpart, Robert Swift, announced they had obtained $10 million from the buyer of Monet’s “Le Bassin aux Nympheas” in exchange for letting him keep the painting and not be dragged into the ill-gotten Marcos wealth cases.

The painting, part of Monet’s famous water lily series, was among Mrs. Marcos’ famed art collection that disappeared upon the downfall of her husband, the late strongman Ferdinand Marcos, in 1986.—Dona Pazzibugan and Kristine Felisse Mangunay