Filipinos target B.C. companies, family to get Marcos loot

Thu, April 21 2005
A series of B.C. companies are being targeted by a group of Filipinos who are seeking a human-rights judgment against the estate of the late Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos.

The companies are linked to the family of a Marcos crony Jose Y. Campos of Vancouver who has already turned over US$130 million worth of stocks and other assets to Manila.


Imelda & Ferdinand Marcos

In a federal lawsuit filed in Fort Worth, Texas this month, the group of Filipinos claims that seven large tracts of land in Tarrant County totaling 4,180 acres, was allegedly bought in the 1970s and 1980s by a third party using money Marcos had stolen from the Philippines.

Tarrant County is located in the north central part of Texas.

The plaintiffs in the lawsuit filed are 9,539 Filipinos who claim they are victims or heirs of victims who were tortured, executed or who disappeared under the Marcos regime.

Marcos governed the Philippines from 1965 to 1986, when he was deposed in the "People Power" revolution.

His rule was marked by widespread corruption, the extravagance of his wife, Imelda, abuse and political repression.

After Marcos was ousted, he fled to Hawaii, where he died in 1989.

The Philippines government is also seeking the return of nearly US$4 billion dollars it says was pilfered from citizens of the Philippines by the family and friends of the former dictator.

As of 1998, the Philippine government said it had recovered US$941 million, but it is believed that millions of dollars are still hidden in international bank accounts and other investments.

The group, which filed the Texas lawsuit this month, received a US$2 billion judgment in 1995 after filing a class-action lawsuit in 1986 in Hawaii, but that number has grown to US$3.8 billion with interest.

It has been trying to collect from the Marcos estate to pay the judgment.

The Tarrant County land was bought by shell corporations and is beneficially owned by the Estate of Ferdinand Marcos, the new suit alleges.

Included is a 330-acre tract of land that is being considered by its current owner, Ellesmere Corp., and Margaux Development Co. in Dallas, for a 2 million-square-foot shopping center.

In 1986, the Tarrant County land was the focus of another federal lawsuit, filed in Houston by the Philippine government, which is also out to seize the assets of Marcos' estate.

Robert Swift, a Philadelphia lawyer who has represented that class action for 19 years, said that lawsuit was "settled quietly" and the land was not turned over to the Philippine government. As a result, the new court action is to go after those assets, Swift said, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

If successful, the land would be foreclosed upon and then sold, he said.

"This has been hard-fought litigation," Swift said.


Former Philippine first lady Imelda Marcos shows a Colombian-made telephone handset shaped into a shoe during a 1999 interview.
According to the new suit, the local land was bought by Jose Y. Campos, a Marcos confidant and investment adviser beginning in the mid-1950s.

Campos allegedly bought the land using offshore companies. When Marcos was removed from office, Campos asserted his ownership of the property, and members of the Campos family now control it, the suit says.

In addition to the companies planning the shopping mall, the lawsuit claims that the land was bought through several entities, including B.N. Development Co., 921 acres; Jason Development Co., 605 acres; Langley Investment Corp., 358 acres; Pender Investment Corp., 890 acres; Revelstoke Investment Corp., 130 acres; and Vernon Investment Corp., 946 acres.

According to Texas comptroller's records, the companies share many of the same directors and officers, including individuals who live in Hong Kong and Vancouver, Canada. The records list Jeffery Campos and Joselito Campos as directors.

Swift said the land is worth more than US$50 million. The Tarrant Appraisal District lists it at more than US$16 million.

Donald Silverman, managing partner at Margaux, one of the companies involved, downplayed the lawsuit as a "fishing expedition" and said that his company will move forward with its development plans.

"The only thing that connects the property [to the Marcos family] is that the investors are from the Philippines," he told the Fort Worth newspaper.

Jose Campos, described as the bagman closest to Marcos, told Philippine investigators tracking the plundered loot that he had organized 40 companies to move millions of dollars of Marcos's money around the world.

In a written statement made in Vancouver in the mid-eighties he claimed to have felt betrayed by the Marcos family and surrendered control of millions of dollars worth of real estate in the Philippines.

Philippine investigators also believe that a Toronto apartment complex and an investment in a chain of Canadian drug stores may be owned by associates of Marcos. They have claimed that Marcos cronies had secretly invested hundreds of millions of dollars in Canadian real estate, retailing and oil and gas.

Campos is not the only person who is thought to have fled to B.C. with some of the Marcos loot.

Another Marcos crony is former textile magnate Dewey Go Dee, who lives in Richmond with his wife and four children.

Dee fled the Philippines in 1981, leaving behind some US$85 million in debts and triggering the near-collapse of the country's financial system.

He faced 176 criminal charges in the Philippines, including "economic sabotage." Court documents claim Dee smuggled hundreds of millions of dollars out of his homeland for Marcos, while some suspect he double-crossed the dictator and took his money.

Dee entered Canada from Costa Rica on a tourist visa and was granted refugee status in 1986 by the Immigration Appeal Board.

Other Marcos associates tracked to Vancouver include two individuals, George Delmas and Toto Mabanta who operated First Vancouver Securities Inc., a company that purchased a seat on the Vancouver Stock Exchange.

Former BC premier Glen Clark had raised the issue of this company in the B.C. parliament when he was in the opposition.

He wanted to know why the then ruling Socred government had not kept its eye on the "Marcos company" which he claimed had arranged financing for 12 other companies before it was shut down.