Press Release
July 29, 2007

PALACE ASKED TO SHED LIGHT ON STATUS OF
P10 BILLION HUMAN RIGHTS COMPENSATION FUND

Senate Minority Leader Aquilino "Nene" Q. Pimentel, Jr. (PDP-Laban) today dared Malacañang to state whether it has junked or not the bill setting aside P10 billion out of the recovered Marcos loot for the compensation of about 10,000 victims of martial law atrocities.

Pimentel expressed dismay that President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo did not mention the proposed Human Rights Compensation Act in her list of proposed administration bills during her state of the nation address at the opening of the 14th Congress.

He decried that while the helpless victims of human rights violation during the martial law are still waiting to be indemnified by the government, the Marcoses have started to reclaim bank deposits, mansions, lands and even GMA-7 shares which the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) had sequestered for being ill-gotten.

Pimentel reminded Mrs. Arroyo that she had certified the Human Rights Compensation Act as an urgent administration measure during the 13th Congress as part of her commitments to address the plight of these marginalized members of society.

As the sponsor of the HRCA, Pimentel vowed to revive the enactment of the compensation bill after it was shelved by the 13th Congress due to the failure of the House of the Representatives to ratify the final version of the measure, last June.

However, Pimentel said the Arroyo government must explain the status of the P10 billion fund amid apprehension that it has already been spent by the government. The money was derived from the P38 billion proceeds of the Marcos bank deposits in Switzerland that was recovered by the government in 2003. ?The problem is we do not know where the money went. That apparently is a big question mark. Some of the reports I received verbally are to the effect that the money was used for the reelection campaign of Gloria Arroyo in 2004, and some of the money was funnelled to the fertilizer fund,? Pimentel said.

The senator from Mindanao said he would ask the Senate to summon the budget and treasury officials of the executive branch to shed light on the status of the P10 billion human rights compensation fund.

"Nobody privately or officially seems to know where the money went. It is hard to formulate a plan of action on that basis except to ferret out the whereabouts of the money," Pimentel said.

Incidentally, he said the Senate has not yet wrapped up its investigation into the alleged diversion of billions of pesos of fertilizer fund to the 2004 election campaign of Mrs. Arroyo. He said there has been no closure yet to the inquiry due to the failure of the Senate to get the testimony of former Agriculture Undersecretary Jocelyn "Jocjoc" Bolante, tagged as the alleged mastermind behind the so-called fertilizer scam.

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