Aquino: PCGG ‘winding up’ task to recover Marcos ill-gotten wealth

President Benigno Aquino III INQUIRER PHOTO

HONOLULU — The Presidential Commission on Good Government is “winding up” its task to recover the ill-gotten wealth of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos, President Benigno Aquino III told reporters over the weekend here.

Aquino indicated the PCGG would be turning over the pending cases and other tasks to other government agencies.

The PCGG was created in 1986 by President Aquino’s late mother, then President Corazon Aquino, with her first executive order.

“The PCGG is winding up its operations,” President Aquino said in an informal chat with reporters.

“They’re going to transfer to various agencies [the pending cases and other duties],” he added.

PCGG chairman Andres Bautista, at the start of the year, wrote Aquino on the proposed winding down of the PCGG’s functions since it has fulfilled its primary mandate of recovering Marcos’ ill-gotten wealth.

Justice Secretary Leila De Lima then expressed the position that a law needed to be passed for the abolition of the commission.

President Aquino made the remarks when he was asked what the government would do with persons reportedly based in Hawaii who have knowledge about the ill-gotten wealth of the Marcoses.

“They want to talk, we’ll look for evidence that can be the basis for extradition,” President Aquino said.

Aquino said much has been written about the Marcos wealth but there remained reports of those that have yet to be identified and located.

He said there’s even a view that even the Marcos family didn’t have entire knowledge of the matter.

“We need the proper evidence and what gives us some comfort is that the constitution recognizes that there is no prescription period where it involves the recovery of the ill-gotten wealth,” he added.