Chasing the Marcos millions

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.4 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 20 May 2022

⏱️ 10 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The former president of the Philippines Ferdinand Marcos Senior is thought to have plundered a huge amount of public money during military rule in the 1970s and '80s. He spent the fortune on foreign properties and the luxury lifestyle enjoyed by his wife, Imelda Marcos. American lawyer Robert Swift has spent decades trying to recover that money so it can paid out as compensation to the thousands of Filipinos who were imprisoned or tortured during martial law. He spoke to Matt Pintus.

(Photo: Imelda Marcos and Ferdinand Marcos Senior in Manila in 1977. Credit: Getty Images)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know.
0:04.7	My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds.
0:08.5	As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable experts and genuinely engaging voices.
0:18.0	What you may not know is that the BBC makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars,
0:24.6	poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories and that's just a few examples.
0:29.7	If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast over at BBC Sounds.
0:36.0	Hello and welcome to the Witness History podcast with me Matt Pintas.
0:45.4	Today I'm bringing you the second of this week's programs
0:48.4	looking at the rule of Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines
0:51.3	following his son's victory in the recent presidential election.
0:55.0	I'm taking you back 30 years to when an American lawyer began a long battle to get compensation
1:00.0	for the victims of Ferdinand Marcos Senior's regime.
1:04.0	As I was driving up to the Marcos home,
1:10.0	I started seeing people walking along these streets and they were holding signs.
1:16.0	When I saw one of the signs that said Swift as a communist, I thought this is not good.
1:22.0	It's January 1993.
1:23.8	Robert Swift is on his way to confront Amel de Markos,
1:27.2	the former First Lady of the Philippines,
1:29.2	at her home in Manila.
1:31.0	More than 50 people surrounded the car and started to shake it.
1:34.9	We didn't know who was in the crowd and whether they had weapons.
1:38.6	I think it was at least 10 minutes before the guard finally opened the gate and allowed us to go through.
	...

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