THE possible abolition of Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG), the agency tasked to recover the ill-gotten wealth of late dictator Ferdinand Marcos, was not tainted with politics, Malacañang said on Thursday.
Speaking to Palace reporters, Presidential Spokesperson Ernesto Abella said the government merely sought to abolish PCGG to prevent overlapping operations within the executive agencies.
Abella said the PCGG’s administrative mandates and functions could be transferred to Office of the Solicitor General (OSG), which is tasked to handle the cases lodged against Marcos, in connection with billions of dollars purportedly plundered by the late despot.
“The Office of the Solicitor General actually handles the cases filed to run after the Marcos’ ill-gotten wealth, while the PCGG actually handles the administrative function. So based on their proposal, the OSG can also handle the administrative functions as well,” Abella told a press conference.
“There’s no politics there. Based on the OSG’s position, apparently, they can. Again, let me stress, it’s not a political question, it’s a question of streamlining and being able to consolidate functions so that there will be no overlap,” he added.
On Wednesday, Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno said the proposal to abolish the PCGG was made to fulfill President Rodrigo Duterte’s proposal to downsize the executive branch by abolishing executive agencies with overlapping or redundant operations and functions.
The PCGG, created on February 28, 1986, was designated to recover all ill-gotten wealth accumulated by Marcos and his family during his 20 years in power, which is believed to have totalled to roughly $10 billion.
In 2014, the PCGG recovered the remaining $29 million inclusive of interest during the time which form part of the multi-million dollar Marcos’ Swiss bank deposits in two West LB accounts in Singapore. (VoxPop Philippines)
