LETTER | Malaysia is 35 years too late on graft, behind the Philippines

LETTER | Today, Dec 7, the Court of Appeal will deliberate on a motion filed by the 6th PM, Najib Abdul Razak, to allow new evidence to be adduced in his appeal.

Whether the hearing will proceed and if a decision will be made by the Court of Appeal on the motion is unclear presently as it was reported publicly that the AG’s Chambers (AGC) may file an affidavit to reply to the motion, which was filed by Najib on Dec 1.

While the country is facing all sorts of challenges brought about by the pandemic and made worse by the race-centric policies being implemented in some sectors of the economy, does it matter to the rakyat whether Najib is sentenced or goes free?

Obviously, the rakyat will be asking how could actions that look so corrupt go unpunished? Prosecution of corruption against prominent politicians is a particularly difficult endeavour and successes in this field are still too rare.

High-level corruption mobilises extensive resources to camouflage “levies”, “commissions”, and “kickbacks” and acquired assets are transferred to safe financial havens.

The sophistication and complexity of these crimes contrast with the broad lack of training of investigators and prosecutors in specific relevant matters such as forensic accounting and management of public funds.

Leading figures often owe their political success to their personal skills, intelligence, charisma, popularity and vast network, which they might try to employ during the investigation as a powerful tool to influence the procedure and its outcome.

Supported by skilled lawyers, they can obstruct the prosecution with lengthy appeals and other stalling tactics to wear down public opinion, which tends to demand results quicker than sound judicial systems can deliver.

Corruption charges against high-profile politicians usually give rise to wide public attention. While this interest contributes an important share in developing public awareness about corruption, it also causes pressure with the media coverage.

Following their own mechanisms and principles, journalists may inquire into the cases themselves or prematurely disclose confidential information to the public. They may also comment on strategic moves of the prosecution and thereby influence the public’s view of the case.

Moreover, certain media may have sometimes well-defined interests in a specific outcome of the case. As such, they may influence public opinion in favour of the defendant or the prosecutor, thereby inevitably weakening the principle of impartiality.

Certain citizens also seemingly display “instinctive” tendencies to be pro-defendant and are often especially sympathetic toward the more well-dressed, well-spoken, and politically successful defendants.

Stolen public funds almost never recovered

It is rare for countries to recover money from deposed leaders. Iran never touched the Shah’s accounts, Romania never touched Ceausescu’s money, and Ethiopia never got a hold of Haile Selassies’ money.

Mali, Haiti, Somalia, Paraguay, Panama, Zaire, Sierra Leone, Cameroon, Uganda, Nicaragua, and the Central African Republic all tried but were unsuccessful.

Only the Philippines had some success. And yet to date, 35 years on, the pursuit is still ongoing.

For the investigators in pursuit of the stolen billions by former president Ferdinand Marcos and his family in the Philippines, it was an extremely frustrating, long journey that started in the mid-80s when Marcos fled the country and went into exile in Hawaii.

But it’s been a period of false starts and deadends, cloak-and-dagger operations, successes, failures, feelings of frustration, helplessness, and powerlessness among the people tasked to do the job.

The Philippines are well aware of what the money could do for the impoverished people of the Philippines. If Marcos stole US$10 billion, it would have paid for the entire government budget for his last year in power three times over.

So, the people want not only to retrieve the stolen money but to restore it. Of the alleged US$10 billion that was obtained by Marcos through illicit means while he was the president, only a total of approximately US$3.5 billion was recovered to date while legal actions are still pending for the recovery of another US$3 billion.

30 years later, the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG), which was formed to recover “all ill-gotten wealth accumulated by former president Ferdinand Marcos, his immediate family, relatives, subordinates and close associates”, and given the power to sequester any assets believed to be the proceeds of crime, is still working. Its 94 lawyers, researchers and administrators are housed in a building recovered from the Marcos family.

The Philippines government gives it an annual budget of US$2.2m. Its staff have traced money through jurisdictions all over the world and fought their way through hundreds of court cases.

Despite the overwhelming pieces of evidence showing the Marcoses and their cronies’ participation and complicity in the unparalleled raid of the national treasury and the subsequent transfers of their loot elsewhere, the post-Marcos administrations have hardly succeeded to bring any of them before the bar of justice.

Not one of the Marcoses and their cronies had spent a day in prison for plundering the Filipino nation to date.

Roadblocks by foreign authorities

Just as Marcos’s wealth was too great to seize, so was his political influence. Foreign governments apparently were partners in the theft with the Marcoses from the Filipino people.

The US government refused to disclose what they knew. Documents seized from Marcos when he was granted asylum in Hawaii when returned to the Philippines government were redacted when the other party is an organisation from the US. The Japanese government threatened the Philippines government that they will stop providing financial aid if the government there insists on documentation while the British government just replied that it was not their business when the Philippines government requested mutual legal assistance.

Marcos committed his crimes as a politician. His career starts with a familiar theme with corrupted politicians all over – manipulating electorates, using money from rich backers to win elections to the Philippines congress, then the senate.

At that time, apparently, he was just another "Mr 10 percent" selling his political influence. According to publicly available records, after he became president, he had the audacity to open a bank account in a New York bank under his own name with a deposit of US$250,000.

Even though there were other leaders also busy stealing from their people in that era, in Haiti, Nicaragua, Iran, Marcos was a model of the politician-thief. He stole more and he stole better.

His wife, Imelda returned from exile in Hawaii six years later to Manila in 1993 and was charged and convicted of personally defrauding the state in a land deal while Marcos was still in power.

She was sentenced to 18 years in prison but bailed while she lodged an appeal. She didn’t spend a single day in jail and five years later the Philippines Supreme Court threw out her conviction on technical grounds.

The PCGG was also hampered in their work. Formed by former president Corazon Aquino, she also ordered the PCGG not to seize anything but to work through the courts to claim all the assets allegedly stolen by the Marcoses.

With their illicit wealth, the Marcoses hire the very best lawyers and soon, cases were sidetracked and delayed by endless technical arguments or legal tactics such as filing motions to reschedule.

The PCGG also ran into problems of its own – it was tainted by the corruption it was trying to expose.

Back with a vengeance

As time passed, with the delay in the court processes, Marcos' allies found their way back into power. They wield influence along the corridors of power and they are back with a vengeance, as if to mock the restored democracy.

Now, with its task still far from complete, the PCGG’s existence is threatened by a political development that would never have been anticipated by the crowds who swelled the streets in triumph as Marcos fled.

The former president’s son, Ferdinand Marcos Jr, is a frontrunner to become president in the national elections on May 9, 2022. If he wins, he will have the power to shut down the PCGG and the world’s biggest thief will have won.

Today, the Philippines government continues to be one of the most indebted in the world. Since 1970, the Philippines government has borrowed US$110 billion, repaid US$125 billion, but is still said today to owe US$45 billion.

It currently spends almost 30 percent of government revenue on debt payments each year, which is more than what is spent on public health and education combined in the country.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.