The Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) is a quasi-judicial government agency of the Philippines whose primary mandate is to recover the ill-gotten wealth accumulated by Ferdinand Marcos, his immediate family, relatives, subordinates and close associates, whether located in the Philippines or abroad. It was created by President Corazon Aquino shortly after she was sworn in as president in the aftermath of the 1986 People Power revolution.Manapat, Ricardo (1991) Some Are Smarter Than Others. Aletheia Press. In addition to recovering the Marcos wealth, it is also tasked with investigating other cases of graft and corruption; and instituting of corruption prevention measures.
Soon after the PCGG was created, Aquino issued an executive order freezing the assets of the Marcoses in the Philippines, and assigning the PCGG to negotiate with foreign governments so that the Marcoses' wealth overseas could be repatriated to the Philippines, giving the PCGG diplomatic powers in addition to its quasi-judicial functions.
In keeping with the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law in 1988, the funds recovered by the PCGG are automatically appropriated to fund the Philippines' agrarian reform programs, and has since then funded more than 80 percent of the Philippines' budget for agrarian reform.
Mandates and powers Mandates The mandates of the PCGG are spelled out under Section 2 of Executive Order No. 1, series 1986:
(a) Recovery of ill-gotten wealth of the Marcoses – The executive order specifies this as "all ill-gotten wealth accumulated by former President Ferdinand E. Marcos, his immediate family, relatives, subordinates and close associates, whether located in the Philippines or abroad, including the takeover or sequestration of all business enterprises and entities owned or controlled by them, during his administration, directly or through nominees, by taking undue advantage of their public office and/or using their powers, authority, influence, connections or relationship."
(b) Investigation of any other cases of graft and corruption - which may be assigned to the commission by the President
(c) The Institution of corruption prevention measures - The executive order specifies this as "The adoption of safeguards to ensure that the above practices shall not be repeated in any manner under the new government, and the institution of adequate measures to prevent the occurrence of corruption."
Powers Sec. 3 of Executive Order No. 1 enumerates the powers and authorities of the PCGG:
(a) To conduct investigation as may be necessary in order to accomplish and carry out the purposes of this order.
(b) To sequester or place or cause to be placed under its control or possession any building or office wherein any ill-gotten wealth or properties may be found, and any records pertaining thereto, in order to prevent their destruction, concealment or disappearance which would frustrate or hamper the investigation or otherwise prevent the commission from accomplishing its task.
(c) To provisionally take over in the public interest or to prevent its disposal or dissipation, business enterprises and properties taken over by the government of the Marcos Administration or by entities or persons close to former President Marcos, until the transactions leading to such acquisition by the latter can be disposed of by the appropriate authorities.
(d) To enjoin or restrain any actual or threatened commission of facts by any person or entity that may render moot and academic, or frustrate, or otherwise make ineffectual the efforts of the commission to carry out its tasks under this order.
(e) To administer oaths, and issue subpoena requiring the attendance and testimony of witnesses and/or the production of such books, papers, contracts, records, statement of accounts and other documents as may be material to the investigation conducted by the commission.
(f) To hold any person in direct or indirect contempt and impose the appropriate penalties, following the same procedures and penalties provided in the Rules of Court.
(g) To seek and secure the assistance of any office, agency or instrumentality of the government.
(h) To promulgate such rules and regulations as may be necessary to carry out the purpose of this order.
Achievements Recovery of ill gotten wealth As of 2019, the PCGG has recovered more than of ill-gotten wealth from the Marcoses and from Marcos cronies since its creation in 1986. Some of this came from money sequestered by the PCGG or surrendered under various compromise agreements, and some of it came from the sale of various surrendered or sequestered properties.
Support to the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program When the Philippines' Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law was passed in 1988, it contained provisions saying that funds recovered by the PCGG should be automatically appropriated to fund the agrarian reform program. Since then, the PCGG has remitted significant amounts to the Department of Agrarian Reform, supplying 80% of the Philippines' agrarian reform budget as of the mid-2010s.
History
Background By the time Ferdinand Marcos was inaugurated president in 1965, he had already served three terms as Congressman for the second district of Ilocos Norte to the Philippine House of Representatives, and then served in the Philippine senate from 1959 to 1965, eventually becoming Senate President before winning the 1965 Philippine Presidential Election. He remained President for 21 years despite the eight year (two four year terms) limitation set by the 1935 Constitution of the Philippines by placing the country under Martial Law in 1972.
Marcos' rule after his 1972 declaration of Martial Law was characterized by numerous human rights abuses while the Marcoses became known for an increasingly decadent lifestyle, until the collapse of the Philippine economy in 1983 and the assassination of opposition senator Benigno Aquino Jr. finally led to the Marcoses being deposed by the 1986 People Power revolution and exiled to Hawaii.
Statements of Assets filed by Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos from 1966 to 1986, showed that they had earned combined salaries worth P2,319,583.33 ($304,372.43 based on prevailing exchange rates at that time). But documents discovered in the Malacañang Palace showed that they had accumulated US$5 billion to US$10 billion worth of cash and assets, spread across the globe.
Ill-gotten wealth Estimates of the ill-gotten wealth of the Marcos family vary, with most sources accepting a figure of about US$5 billion–10 billion for wealth acquired in the last years of the Marcos administration, but with rough extreme estimates of wealth acquired since the 1950s going as high as US$30 billion.
In a 1985 report to the United States Congress House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Stephen Bosworth estimated that the Marcoses had stolen an accumulated wealth of US$10 billion "in recent years", in the context of the rapid decline of the Philippine economy in the early 1980s. The same figure was cited by the Philippines' Office of the Solicitor General soon after Marcos was deposed by the EDSA Revolution in 1986.
Bosworth's source, Dr. Bernardo Villegas of the Philippine think tank the Center for Research and Communication, noted that the figure ultimately cited by Bosworth was a conservative estimate, and that the amount probably came closer to $13 billion.
The PCGG's first chairperson, Jovito Salonga later said that he estimated the figure of US$5 billion–10 billion, based on the documentary trail left behind by the Marcoses in 1986. Internationally, Salonga's estimate has become the popularly cited estimate of the Marcoses' unexplained wealth, and it is this amount for which the Marcoses were cited by Guinness World Records as having perpetrated the "largest-ever theft from a government" in 1989—a record they still hold in 2022.
However Jesus Estanislao, another noted economist from the Center for Research and Communication, pointed out that this figure reflected amounts taken out of the country in the years immediately prior to the ouster of the Marcos administration, and that there was no way to accurately estimate the wealth acquired by the Marcoses since the 1950s. He suggested that the figure could be as much as $30 billion.
Creation (1986) On February 28, 1986, three days after she was inaugurated as President of the Philippines at Club Filipino, Corazon Aquino issued Executive Order No. 1, creating the PCGG, exercising her unique position of having full possession of both legislative and executive powers as president of the new revolutionary government.
Two weeks later on March 12, she signed Executive Order No. 2, freezing the assets of the Marcoses in the Philippines and authorizing the PCGG to negotiate with foreign governments to facilitate the recovery of Marcos assets abroad.
Jovito Salonga, who had advised Aquino on how the commission should be organized, was appointed as its first chairperson.
On June 22, 1987, Aquino issued Presidential Proclamation 131 and Executive Order 229, implementing Article II Section 21 of the constitution, which states that “The State shall promote comprehensive rural development and agrarian reform.” Marcos wealth recovered by the PCGG was automatically appropriated for agrarian reform. This led to the Congressional enactment of Republic Act No. 8532 - the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law in 1988, which gave a congressional mandate for the program and formalized the automatic appropriation of PCGG'S recovered funds for that purpose. Since then, funds recovered by the PCGG have funded upwards of 80% of the Philippine budget for the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program. Constitutionality The constitutionality of the PCGG was upheld in 2022 when the Sandiganbayan denied a petition challenging the PCGG's creation.
Jovito Salonga chairmanship (1986-1987) Jovito Salonga stayed on as chairperson of the PCGG for a year, eventually deciding to run in the 1987 Philippine Senate election after the 1987 Constitution of the Philippines had restored the bicameral Congress of the Philippines.
During Salonga's term as chairperson the PCGG sequestered several billions of pesos worth of property, reached out to the governments of the United States and Switzerland to ask for help in recovering wealth Marcos had stashed in those countries, filed civil cases for the recovery of assets from known Marcos cronies, and entered into settlement deals with Marcos cronies Jose Yao Campos and Antonio Floirendo.
Under Salonga, the PCGG immediately put Aquino's Executive Order No. 2 into effect, sequestering several billions of pesos worth of property, including: the Malacañang jewelry collection; 236 corporations including the United Coconut Planter's Bank (UCPB), Banahaw Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), Intercontinental Broadcasting Corporation (IBC), Radio Philippines Network (RPN), Philippine Communications Satellite Corporation (PhilComSat), Philippine Overseas Telecommunications Company (POTC), Eastern Telecommunications Philippines Inc. (ETPI), Bataan Shipyard and Engineering Company (BASECO), Chemfields Inc., San Miguel Corporation (SMC), and Coconut Investment Corporation; and shares of stock in 143 other companies. In addition, the PCGG secured the Award of Titles to two properties in New Jersey—the ones at Princeton Pike and Pendleton Drive—from the New Jersey Supreme Court. It also began auctioning various Marcos properties, turning over the proceeds to the Bureau of Treasury.