This is the truth about Ferdinand E. Marcos that many Filipinos didn't know, and honestly, those who accused against Marcos Family are most dangerous and well corrupt. How about Marcos? I have a word to every reader in this article, Marcos served the Filipino people with his brilliant leadership and honest heart.
A former Catholic priest here claims to have evidence that the alleged Marcos gold horde is composed of World War II “Yamashita gold and Vatican gold.’ Ex-priest Marcelino Tagle of Bataan, a former director of Caritas Manila and one of the nation’s “Ten Outstanding Young Men’ in 1967,said in a recent interview that the nation “should benefit’ from the Marcos gold, which he estimated at “10 trillion dollars.’
Ten trillion dollars is 10 times more than the gross national product of China in 1998; around 127 times more than the GNP of the Philippines; and almost 10 times the combined worth of the world’s 200 richest known billionaires in 1999. “Iam ready to substantiate and defend my claims for the benefit of theFilipino people,’ Tagle said when told that his claims were preposterous.
The former priest said he once served as an adviser of the late President Ferdinand Marcos and administrator for the estate of another man whom he claimed was the source of the Marcos gold.
But because Marcos was allegedly able to gain control of the gold certificates and cover the paper trail, according to Tagle, “it is almost impossible to recover them without piecing the various pieces like a mosaic.’
Tagle said the gold certificates and bullion were deposited in at least 15 countries. How the Vatican and Yamashita treasure reached the Philippines is a story that, he claims, involves two of the century’s most influential personalities–Adolf Hitler and Gen. Douglas MacArthur.
Royal Gold
Tagle said the Vatican gold included “gold bars captured by Hitler. The gold bars belonged to the royalties of Europe, of which the Vatican was trustee.’ It also included “royal gold’, which the British reportedly shipped to Singapore for safekeeping in the event that Hitler would conquer all of Europe.
Tagle said that the Vatican entrusted the treasure to a certain Father Jose Antonio Diaz, who assumed several names when he moved to the Philippines. One of his aliases, according to Tagle, was “Col. Severino Sto. Romana.” Tagle said Sto. Romana hired the young Marcos as his lawyer and trustee. He said the Sto. Romana gold was “actually more than the Marcos gold, about $50 trillion, but this treasure is tied up with the Marcos gold.’
Tagle, co-administrator of the Sto. Romana estates, said the Yamashita treasure was recovered through the help of MacArthur and Yamashita’s wife. But an estimated 400,000 metric tons from both the Marcos and Sto. Romana gold, he said, “are still in the country, hidden in caves.’
Marcos was former lawyer of the Filipino royal blood family, the "Tallano" the royal family gave huge numbers of gold (Another history of Marcos and Tallano, the Marcos gold from Tallano, the Filipino royal family)
For Lack of Documents
The heirs of Sto. Romana were unable to recover the assets “for lack of original documents and (because of the) nature of the accounts (which required) full cooperation of nominees and trustees constituted by the late PresidentMarcos.’
Appearing before the Senate blue ribbon committee on October 14, 1997, Tagle said Marcos, as lawyer and chief trustee of Sto. Romana.
Succeeded in isolating the nominees or trustees of the gold certificates from the physical assets – so much so that it is almost impossible to recover them without piecing the various pieces like amosaic.’
Tagle said the “Marcos gold was not stolen from the Philippine government.’ Instead, said the former priest, Marcos abused his authority by using the Central Bank to transact the gold. Tagle, who is presently in Davao City as consultant of gold prospectors, said he was ready to substantiate his claims. He allegedly went into exile in the United States in September 1969 because the Marcoses were displeased about his leading a protest against graft and corruption in the Bureau of Customs.
He resigned from the priesthood and married. He is now chair and chief executive officer of International Consultex Inc., a New York-based mining, consultancy and engineering firm.
A Lot of Money
The Senate is conducting public hearings on the Marcos wealth, revolving around a $13.2-billion Swiss bank account once allegedly kept by Irene Marcos Araneta. Former Solicitor General Francisco Chavez is presenting the evidence. “Chavez knows what he is talking about,’ said Tagle, adding that the Marcos wealth was so huge that even Marcos’.
If Tagle’s $10-trillion estimate of the Marcos wealth were true, the Marcoses would be around 111 times richer than “the richest man in the world,’ Microsoft chief Bill Gates. Forbes Magazine in June estimated Gates’ fortune at $90 billion. Ten trillion dollars is also 56 times more than the combined net worth of the top 50 billionaires in Asia, and almost 1,111 times the combined net worth of four Filipino billionaires who made it to the 1999 list. The Marcos family was not that list. The amount is also equivalent to almost half of the combined GNP of the world’s top 10 economies in 1998. It would take approximately 4500 people–counting uninterrupted at a rate of one dollar per second–70 years to count $10 trillion.