Winning civil cases over the span of several years is enough proof that the wealth held by his family was legitimately acquired, President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. said Friday.
His remarks came at a luncheon organized by the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines (FOCAP), where a journalist pressed him on where things stand with the settlement of his family’s estate tax. Marcos serves as one of the executors of the estate left behind by his father, the late former president Ferdinand Marcos.
“The reason we won those civil cases is because they were proven to be not ill-gotten wealth. To characterize that as ill-gotten wealth, immediately I have to respond and to say—kaya nga kami nanalo dahil napatunayan namin na hindi ito ill-gotten wealth (we won precisely because we proved that this was not ill-gotten wealth),” Marcos said.
Pressed further, the President admitted he has not given the estate his full attention, saying the demands of the presidency have kept him occupied. He framed the question as one of priorities, placing the affairs of government far above any personal concern.
“When it comes to prioritization for the things that I spend time with, and I focus on, this is a family matter. The matters of state and governance are a thousand times more important than any family matter—in fact, 113 million times more important than any family matter,” he said.
According to Marcos, responsibility for the estate now rests with his family’s lawyers, and he encouraged the reporter to bring any further questions to them. He described his own involvement as minimal.
“I hear about it in passing, but I don’t really sit in on meetings, and I don’t really concern myself with that so much. I believe that I have some very good legal advisors, and I leave it up to them. First of all, I’m not a lawyer, so that legal advice is not something that I fully understand,” he said.
The tax obligation traces back to a 1997 Supreme Court ruling that pegged the Marcos family’s estate tax liability at P23 billion, a decision that reached finality in 1999. Retired Supreme Court Justice Antonio Carpio has said the unpaid balance, compounded by interest over the years, now stands at roughly P203 billion.
