Unfortunate Consequences: Legal Barriers to Ill-Gotten Wealth Recovery

Is the quest to recover the wealth plundered during the Marcos era an exercise in futility? It has been more than 20 years since the Marcoses were driven out of power and it seems that nothing has changed. In recent months, I’ve seen pictures which appear to show that Madame is on great terms with Gloria (the Pipsqueak that did) and that a compromise agreement is in the works.

A significant portion of the recovered Marcos wealth has allegedly been spent before the 2004 elections. What I find disturbing is that this development does not seem to have set the necessary alarm bells ringing. Public reaction has largely been disgusted resignation leading to apathy and indifference. I’ve been involved in conversations where people have just shrugged and said that justice is not blind here in the Philippines. Money will talk and recent history seems to show that those with money will be able to make and break rules with impunity.

This is the reason why Darwin Mariano’s Unfortunate Consequences: Legal Barriers to Ill-Gotten Wealth Recovery is so timely and important. As Sen. Jovito Salonga said in the Forward: “I hope that it helps justices, judges, lawyers, law students and ordinary Filipinos to better appreciate and understand the many problems facing this protracted but urgent task.” The book sifts through the quagmire of laws and bureaucratic red tape to highlight serious barriers to the recovery of ill-gotten wealth and should be studied by those in a position (or aspiring to be in a position) to lift those barriers. Ignorance is not bliss. We must be able to prove to ourselves, if not the world, that we have the testicular fortitude to do what is right and impose the appropriate punishment on those who do the country wrong.

Copies may be obtained at the 2^nd floor of the Goodwill Bookstore in Glorietta or emailing the author, Atty. Darwin Mariano at darwin.mariano@gmail.com. Part of the royalties will be donated to Aksyon Para sa Edukasyon (Action for Eduction), a movement committed to improving the quality of public education and governance throughout the Philippines.