BALANGA, Bataan, 4 July 2004 — Former President Corazon Aquino and church leaders yesterday expressed reservations over the government’s moves to improve relations with the family of late dictator Ferdinand Marcos.
Speaking on the sidelines of a church function in Balanga, west of Manila, Aquino said she was not consulted over attempts by President Gloria Arroyo’s government to reach out to Marcos’ widow, Imelda, and other relations.
“I still want to know who are responsible for the assassination of Ninoy,” Aquino said, referring to her husband, opposition leader Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino who was shot dead by Marcos troops in 1983.
Ninoy’s killing triggered protests against Marcos, culminating in the 1986 “People Power revolt” that toppled the dictator and installed Corazon Aquino as president.
Although a group of soldiers was convicted of the killing, the mastermind was never revealed.
The local Roman Catholic Church, which counts most Filipinos as followers, played a key role in organizing support for the revolt that sent Marcos into exile in Hawaii, where he died in 1989.
Davao Archbishop Fernando Capalla, president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), said Arroyo’s decision to reach out to the Marcos family was a “good sign” but warned the government to carefully study the possible effects.
“I hope they really understand what it means and what are the implications of sincere rather than fake reconciliation,” Capalla said.
Arroyo, who won a new six-year term in the bitterly contested May 10 elections, has reached out to the opposition in recent weeks and called Imelda Marcos Friday on her 75th birthday.
Reconciliation for All
Responding to the reactions, President Arroyo said yesterday she was seeking reconciliation with all groups, not for her convenience, but for the people to reap its fruits.
“We reach out for reconciliation at the level of political leaders and at the level of the people and constituencies. The fruits of nation-building are not for us leaders, but for the people to reap. Reconciliation should not be for the convenience of power holders but for the better future of the average Filipino,” she said.
She said a “partnership with the opposition must not only be forged in rhetoric. The opposition must send their best and brightest to help the nation move forward. Together we must share responsibility for the welfare of the people.”
Presidential spokesman Ignacio Bunye confirmed that Arroyo greeted Mrs. Marcos on her birthday but he said the reconciliation move would not affect the government’s long battle to recover the Marcos ill-gotten wealth.
“Reconciliation must be with justice,” said Bunye, echoing demands by various groups, notably the good government advocate Kilosbayan, that the Marcoses should show remorse first.
There will never be true reconciliation unless the Marcoses and their cronies voluntarily returned what they have looted during the dictatorial regime, according to Kilosbayan founder and former Senate President Jovito Salonga.
Imelda Marcos and some of their cronies, including Herminio Disini, face numerous civil and criminal cases filed by the government in an effort to recover as much as $10 billion in assets they allegedly stole during the late dictator’s 20-year rule.
Earlier, state prosecutors said they were reviving a case against Marcos crony Herminio Disini on the allegedly overpriced Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP), for which Filipino taxpayers continue to pay some $155,00 a day for interest alone of a loan used to pay for the facility from Westinghouse.
Records of a case filed in the past by prosecutors showed that while General Electric won with a bid of about $600 million to put up the power plant in Morong, Bataan, in the 70s, the Marcos government had the National Power Corp. revoke the bid and Westinghouse eventually became the winner with a bloated funding of more than $2 billion.
Disini was blamed for manipulating the bidding, for which he allegedly got a huge kickback that he was supposed to have split with Marcos.
In 1986, the Aquino government mothballed the power plant after a study found that it was unsafe to operate.
Disini, now said to be living “like a prince” in Austria, was also responsible for putting up the Cellophil Resources Corp. (CRC), which destroyed hundreds of hectares of pine forests in the mountains of Abra for a failed pulp project. The government had also assumed the loan used to finance the power plant now rotting in Tayum, Abra.
The Marcoses were kicked out of the country during a “people power” revolution in 1986. After Marcos died in 1989 in Hawaii, his family was allowed to return home and they have regained some political influence.
