“I don’t think we need to spend the next 100 years running after the Marcoses,” Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin C. Remulla said on Thursday, July 28.
Remulla issued the statement as he discussed the functions of the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG), an agency attached to the Department of Justice (DOJ).
He said the PCGG is “an office created by law and, by history, to run after the family of our President.”
“But after 36 years, things are beginning to simmer down. Most of the sequestered assets are already up there in the Department of Finance,” he said.
Very recently, the Sandiganbayan has affirmed its 2019 ruling that dismissed the P200-billion forfeiture case against the Marcoses.
Remulla said there is no need to abolish the PCGG.
“We don’t really want to abolish PCGG and I have suggested that we create an asset forfeiture office for those whose assets are seized by government for nonpayment of taxes, for drug trafficking, or for other crimes,” he said.
“We should have a central office where all the assets are deposited so that these can be properly accounted for,” he added.
At the moment, Remulla said there is no such office and that “there’s still confusion within the system as to where” the assets seized will be placed.
“So, we have to have a central body so that we know how much we really get from the proceeds of crimes that we are forfeiting in favor of the government and of the people,” he said.
“My team has been looking into this matter,” he added.