35 million dollars of dictator Marcos allocated to regime's victims

After a 10-year legal battle, the US federal appeals court ruled that the money should go to victims and not to the Filipino government.

San Francisco (AsiaNews/Agencies) – Thousands of Filipinos will now be able to share 35 million dollars deposited in a New York bank account that used to belong to the ex dictator Ferdinand Marcos. This was ordered by the US federal appeals court. Marcos had opened the account in 1972 with a deposit of two million dollars.

The sentence was handed down on Thursday 4 May after a 10-year legal battle between the government of the Philippines – that claimed ownership of the deposit – and 9,500 citizens who were asking for compensation for the abuse of their human rights by the dictatorial regime. These people filed a civil suit against the Marcos estate in 1986, the year he was deposed as president after ruling for 20 years. Marcos went into exile on the Hawaii islands, where he died in 1989.

In 1995, a Honolulu jury awarded the group two billion dollars as compensation for being affected by summary executions, disappearances and torture. So far, none of the money has been distributed because the Philippine government claimed ownership of Marcos' possessions and the money was tied up by foreign banks. The compensation value now stands at four billion dollars due to the interest.

The plaintiffs are also trying to seize 22 million dollars deposited by Marcos in a Singapore bank and other property of his in several countries.

• PHILIPPINES
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• compensation
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• rights