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if you've ever wanted to know what a
revolution looks like
feast your eyes on manila tonight
marx's regime ended in 1986 when he was
toppled by what is now known as the
people power revolution
the filipino government has estimated
that
the amount the marcos family pilfered
was between 5 billion and 10 billion
dollars
so this is just graphed on an absolutely
massive
unheard of scale marcos declared martial
law in 1972
closed newspapers jailed political foes
turned parliament into a rubber stamp
the marcos regime was very concerned
about dissidents
so the security forces are tasked with
arresting the dissidents torturing them
for information
oftentimes the victim would be summarily
executed a nation
took to the streets tonight to celebrate
its victory the dictator had fallen
the people conquered his palace reagan
who was president at this time
actually offered marcos asylum
in the u.s and so when marcos did
ultimately decide to step down
in february of 1986 reagan sent two
planes
to carte marcos and 90 members of his
entourage
along with millions of dollars worth of
loot
it is time to come to an understanding
with both the government and marcus's
to compensate the human rights victims
in
1992 after years
of building the case the
marcos class action finally went to
trial
the jury in hawaii ultimately
held marcos responsible the
judgment in total was almost two billion
dollars
which was astronomical
it's been a long fight at this point but
we're going to continue the fight to the
end
we knew at the outset that it was going
to be
a very risky litigation at that point
what they had was just
a number on a piece of paper and
actually turning it into
money for the class was going to be a
much harder
challenge
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my name is hayley cohen gilliland and i
am an independent journalist
based in los angeles we cannot succeed
without the support of our people
so ferdinand marcos ran the philippines
for
21 years and he first blazed into the
presidency
in 1965
was a remarkably charismatic figure he
was a wonderful orator
he had a beautiful wife who was very
elegant and had
a gorgeous singing voice and she would
reveal crowds at his campaign
rallies now everybody seems to
be involved in the destiny not only of
himself but of the entire country
of the entire nation and this is what we
have been
hoping and praying for his first term
was really promising he
invested really widely in infrastructure
and urban beautification
and especially rural development and so
his base of followers grew and grew
then in his second term he started to
run into some problems allegations of
corruption
growing poverty and simultaneously
some separatist guerrilla groups
violent groups started to pop up in the
country
ferdinand marcos at this point takes
advantage of
the advent of these groups to declare
martial law and essentially rule the
country by decree
i have received hundreds and hundreds of
telegrams from all corners of the
philippines
congratulating you and incidentally me
for the proclamation of martial law
and all the while filipino citizens were
were being tortured and imprisoned
the marcoses would spend really brazenly
and lavishly so they amassed
dozens of luxury properties all over the
philippines
and around the world then in 1986
ferdinand marcos decided to call an
election
by all accounts marcos fixed that
election
and when that became clear that
unleashed massive protests
around the country millions of filipinos
flooded into the streets
demanding that marcos stepped down and
ultimately
in that case the u.s finally said enough
is enough
and encouraged marcos to step down as
well but they didn't completely
cut support because reagan who was
president at this time
actually offered marcos asylum
in the u.s and so when marcos did
ultimately decide to step down
in february of 1986 reagan sent two
planes
to cart marcos and 90 members of his
entourage
along with millions of dollars worth of
loot diamonds and
and cash some of which they carried out
in diaper boxes
reagan sent planes to to cart those
people
and and assets to honolulu where
marcos was welcomed with asylum
my name's robert swift most people call
me bob
i'm a litigator i do complex litigation
and i've been doing that for almost 48
years
[Applause]
at the time of the revolution in the
philippines
there was a great deal of publicity as
well as
information that various human rights
groups had collected
about human rights abuses committed by
the marcus regime
and my initial intention was to bring
individual cases
but when i learned of the enormity of
the
abuses i decided that
uh it was worthwhile to try bringing a
class action
and the way that he did that was using
this very rarely
used statute called the alien torch
statute
and that statute was first enacted in
1789 it's only a couple of sentences but
it essentially allows
non-us citizens to sue
people for violations of international
law
in u.s court about 10 000 filipino
people
signed on to become a part of this class
action which is absolutely
a massive class it is time to compensate
the human rights victims
the first name plaintiff was uh a
college age girl by the name of lily oso
ilao
she was uh had
written some articles uh in the student
press
which were not flattering to the
marcoses or the marcos regime
she was arrested by a military
taken to a military detention center
where she was
interrogated when she was uncooperative
the military poured muriatic acid down
her throat
and she died from asphyxiation
another example is an individual by the
name of mariano pimentel
pimentel had been a political leader in
mindanao
he had been arrested several times he
was
finally released from detention after uh
more than six months and on his
way uh back to his province
military members in a jeep stopped him
took him to a sugar cane field had him
dig
a grave they then buried him up to his
neck
and before they filled in the soil
they broke a leg and broke an arm so
that he wouldn't be able to dig himself
out they then put the soil back
in and buried him up to his neck and
they figured they would let the ants
do the rest he survived because there
were several children who
had been hiding in the sugar cane field
who saw him and dug him out
and he later emigrated to the united
states where i met him
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in addition the present state has the
duty to uphold
the need to recompense its own victims
in 1992 after
years of building the case
the marcos class action finally went to
trial
in hawaii and the
jury in hawaii ultimately held marcos
responsible for the abuses
and torture that had occurred under his
regime
so in 1994 swift asked the jury for
one billion dollars which represented a
hundred thousand dollars
per victim which he felt was an
appropriate amount
well i don't know that no other lawyer
had ever asked a jury for a billion
billion dollars however
our case is unique in that we really
supported
that number through the the enormity of
the abuses that had occurred
and the amount that the jury ultimately
awarded to the marcos class totaled
almost 2 billion
that was astronomical figure an
absolutely unheard of figure it was the
largest ever
personal injury judgment in history
so immediately upon receiving the
monetary judgments in 1994 and 1995
got to work and started
assessing what things they could try to
claim
this was very challenging in part
because the philippines
courts did not recognize the us judgment
and so they couldn't go after
any assets in the philippines they had
to go after assets elsewhere
in effect i was limited to executing on
whatever marcos assets were in the
united states
and of course the marcuses weren't
willing to
uh testify as to that i took their
depositions
several times and they claimed they
didn't
know anything of course that was false
[Applause]
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so the turning point as it relates to
collections
was between two thousand and 2010
and essentially what happened was there
was a
an oil investor in texas by the name of
alan meeker
and he found some attractive parcels of
land that he was interested in
purchasing
but for the life of him the way that he
describes it was he couldn't find the
darn owner
and as he was doing due diligence on
this land he realized
remembered a rumor that he had heard
when he was younger
that ferdinand marcos had actually
purchased
a bunch of oil-producing lands in texas
these lands proved to be very valuable
and
ultimately was able to settle that
litigation for 10 million dollars
so swift was absolutely overjoyed
at the prospect of finally having enough
money to
distribute to the class members who had
waited for so many decades
to see anything after the judgments came
and but the challenges were still
very great in terms of how the money
would actually get distributed
so while i had 10 000 checks with names
on them
many of the people had died by that i
meant i mean
more than 20 percent so
the process was laborious and much
slower
than i would have liked but it was very
effective
and it was also gratifying
the faces of the people
expressing their gratitude were enough
of a reward
that i felt good about what we were
doing
and the and i knew that it was going to
benefit them
i would often ask people frequently
through an interpreter
how are you going to use the money and i
was told uh
that they would use it to put a cemetery
stone
in uh by the church for
their loved one or they would send their
children to school
or they would simply buy food the older
people
would use the money to buy prescription
drugs that they couldn't otherwise
afford
ten years i'm starting to rise again
now like a phoenix hopefully the truth
will come
from the ashes of what was done to us
ferdinand marcos and his family were
exiled from the philippines
in the 1980s but subsequent to his death
they were allowed to return and
since then they have managed to really
regain
the popularity that they enjoyed
during his term congratulations senator
aimee marcos
well it's outrageous that uh
the nation allows this to happen
would i say sorry for the the power
generation will i say sorry for the
highest literacy rate
in asia what am i to say sorry about
in in the philippines as in other
countries
uh elections are frequently won by those
who can
more readily distribute money
during the election process the marcoses
have had access
to the monies acquired and hidden by
ferdinand marcos
the richest is senator ferdinand marcos
jr who declared a net worth
of more than 400 million pesos
bongbong marcos his son is running for
president
in 2022 and is pulling quite well
i'm confident that some of the money
that was acquired by ferdinand marcos
and hidden
is going to find its way into the 2022
election in the philippines
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you