Justice Secretary Remulla: “I don’t think we need to spend the next hundred years running after the Marcoses.”
BOYING REMULLA — Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla on Thursday said that he wants the functions of the PCGG (Presidential Commission on Good Government) to be expanded beyond recovering the ill-gotten wealth of the Marcos family and their cronies, in a plan that mirrors the President’s pitch for the agency.
Inquirer reported that the Marcos estate tax liability has allegedly ballooned to PHP 203 billion from the PHP 23 billion originally assessed by the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) in 1991.
At the sidelines of a meeting of the Rotary Club of Manila last July 28, Remulla told reporters that he thinks it’s “improbable” for the Marcoses’ estate taxes to bloat to more than PHP 200 billion, which he blamed on a “biased computation”.
“When we were looking at the future of the PCGG, how it’s been 36 years after the fact, I don’t think we need to spend the next hundred years running after the Marcoses,” he said.
His suggestion, which he said he has floated to President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., is to create a central office tasked to take control of seized assets from the non-payment of taxes, drug trafficking, graft and corruption, and other crimes.
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Remulla also said that the idea was borne out of discussions within the Department of Justice (DOJ) on the fate of the PCGG.
Based on the report, deceased President Corazon “Cory” Aquino created the PCGG upon assuming office in 1986 in order to sequester ill-gotten assets of the Marcoses and their cronies.
The Justice Secretary added that since the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) has training on asset management, “we might as well look into it”.
“This will be a good one, it’s the time really for us to look at how we deal with the proceeds of crimes,” he said.
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