#25

• Marcos holds the Guinness World Record for "Greatest Robbery of a Government" to the tune of $5 billion to $10 billion
• Corruption during the Marcos years was rampant not just in the public sector but also in the private sector
• Crony capitalism


  Marcos appointed key cronies (friends and relatives) to monopolize key industries
• Industries monopolized by Marcos cronies

  • Bananas by Antonio Florendo
  • Sugar by Roberto Benedicto
  • Coconuts by Eduardo "Danding" Cojuangco
• Marcos routinely issued presidential decrees that granted special privileges to his cronies
• Privileges granted to Marcos cronies

  • Lucio Tan secured concessions for his beer and cigarette manufacturing businesses
  • Benny and Glecy Tantoco operated duty-free shops
  • Juan Ponce Enrile enjoyed concessions in the logging industry
  • Herminio Disini monopolized the importation of cigarette filters and brokered the construction of the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant
• The coco levy, a tax imposed by Marcos on the coconut industry, amounted to about P93 billion but most of it got siphoned by the Marcoses and their ilk
• Marcos and his cronies were co-conspirators in a systematic scheme to loot the Philippine economy
• Imelda Marcos: '"We practically own everything in the Philippines, from electricity, telecommunications, airlines, banking, beer and tobacco, newspaper publishing, television stations, shipping, oil and mining, hotels and beach resorts, down to coconut milling, small farms, real estate, and insurance."'
• Imelda Marcos: '"If you know how much you've got, you probably don't have much."'
• Marcos routinely "raided" the treasury and other government financial institutions, leading to the bankruptcy of the Central Bank
• By the end of the Marcos regime, the old Central Bank had amassed about P300 billion in losses
• In the last two years of the Marcos regime, they spent $68 million on clothes, paintings, antiques, handicrafts, food, hotel accommodations, transport, and flowers
• When the Marcoses fled to Hawaii, they carted off in two C-141 planes a total of 23 wooden crates, 12 suitcases, and 70 boxes and bags containing $9 million in cash, jewelry, and bonds, P27 million in "freshly printed" bills, 24 gold bricks, and 413 pieces of jewelry
• The Marcoses had also bought 50 or so real estate properties in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut using Panamanian shell or dummy corporations
• The Marcoses had stashed about $500 million in ill-gotten wealth in Swiss bank accounts using the pseudonyms William Saunders and Jane Ryan
• As of 2017, the Presidential Commission on Good Government has recovered P171.4 billion of the Marcoses' ill-gotten wealth
• President Duterte, a close ally of the Marcoses, wants the PCGG abolished