Pimentel open to review of PCGG’s existence

Senate President Koko Pimentel —MARIANNE BERMUDEZ

Senate President Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III on Friday said he was open to revisit the continued existence of the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) amid Malacañang’s plan to abolish it as part of streamlining government operations.

Sen. Francis Escudero, chair of the Senate committee on banks, financial institutions and currencies, however, has called for a full inventory and accounting of all the assets it has sequestered from the Marcoses since 1986 before pursuing talks on its abolition.

“If there is failure to protect and preserve sequestered assets, then abolition this time may lead to the unintended consequence of hiding misdeeds committed by the agency in the past,” said Escudero, noting a Commission on Audit (COA) report about six sequestered paintings that have gone missing since 2012.

In the same report, the COA also said most of the artworks the PCGG recovered had been damaged and in a state of deterioration.

“A mere cursory observation of some of the well-known sequestered assets of the PCGG like paintings, jewelry, buildings and shares of stocks would show undue depreciation and absence or lack of due diligence in its care and preservation, not to mention the losses that were reported, too,” said Escudero.

“It would be too much to bear to find out that recovered assets pilloried from the state is squandered the same by the agency tasked to run after it,” he said, stressing the need for accountability from the commission.

Pimentel on Friday said after its 30 years of work, the commission should have achieved its sole objective to recover the ill-gotten wealth of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos. “It hasn’t achieved yet its objective that’s why it makes one wonder why,” he said in a text message. —WITH A REPORT FROM BEN O. DE VERA