Imelda and Imee Marcos called to testify vs Lucio Tan
By Jocelyn Uy
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 03:29:00 09/06/2008
MANILA, Philippines — Imelda Marcos and her daughter Imee have been summoned to testify at the anti-graft court Sandiganbayan on Monday to support government claims that most tycoon Lucio Tan's corporate holdings belonged to the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos.
The Sandiganbayan’s Fifth Division on Friday issued summonses to the Marcoses and their former financial manager, Rolando Gapud, who is now based in Hong Kong, as requested by the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG).
Tan was known mainly as a tobacco and beer magnate during Marcos’ rule, which ended in 1986 during a People Power uprising. Today he also owns or controls other major businesses, including Philippine National Bank and Philippine Airlines, and has entered the property development sector.
The PCGG, the agency tasked with recovering Marcos’ alleged ill-gotten wealth, asked the court to summon the three to support a testimony of Ferdinand Marcos Jr., who claimed in August last year that 60 percent of Tan's corporate holdings belonged to his father.
Marcos Jr. presented photocopies of a deed of assignment illustrating how the assets of his father and Tan were put under Shareholdings Inc., a holding company for all the corporations controlled by Tan.
He also said Tan promised to help him learn how to run the businesses and gave him a tour of some of those companies.
Imelda Marcos was subpoenaed twice in June but did not appear in court. The first summons was sent to the wrong address. She postponed her appearance on June 4 because she was sick.
The PCGG was expecting the former first lady to bring with her original papers that would prove her son's claims.
Some of those documents, as the PCGG earlier elaborated, pertained to Silangan Holdings, Foremost Farms Inc., Fortune Tobacco Corp., Himmel Industries Inc., Grandspan Development Corp. and Asia Brewery Inc. — all under Shareholdings Inc.
The court had earlier ruled that Marcos Jr.'s testimony pertaining to the documents would only be admitted in court as evidence if the prosecution presented the original documents or established secondary evidence.
It will be the first time for Imee Marcos and Gapud, a former banker, to be called to the witness stand. The PCGG believes their testimony will be crucial to the case.
Marcos Jr. said he and Imee were once called to a meeting by their father at which he instructed both of them to conduct an inventory and audit of all of the businesses he owned — including those Tan’s name — when Tan went abroad.
He said that at that meeting their father supposedly showed them documents — deeds of assignment of shares of stock and titles of properties — and drew a "sketch" of the ownership structures.
Gapud allegedly signed an affidavit in 1987 in which he stated that Tan belonged to a group that could get presidential decrees and letters of instructions—effectively laws during Marcos’ rule by martial law — from Marcos for their "joint benefit." With additional information and editing by INQUIRER.net
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