A rare remittance from the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG)—reportedly proceeds from the sale of a Claude Monet painting considered as ill-gotten wealth by the family of strongman Ferdinand Marcos Sr.—has helped triple the Marcos Jr. administration’s privatization revenues in the first half of 2025.

The latest Bureau of the Treasury (BTr) data, posted on its website last week, showed that privatization proceeds soared 208 percent to ₱1.266 billion in the first six months of the year from ₱411 million during same period last year.

A closer look at the BTr data showed that the PCGG—tasked to recover and sell assets from Marcos Sr., his family, and cronies—made a ₱714-million remittance to the national treasury, as proceeds from its privatization activities, in the month of May.

Prior to May 2025, the PCGG had not added any privatization revenues since the about ₱900,000 remitted in May 2023 from the sale of a 300-square meter (sqm) property in Calapan, Oriental Mindoro.

Department of Finance (DOF) Undersecretary Catherine L. Fong, who heads the DOF’s privatization and partnerships group (PPG), told Manila Bulletin last week that the PCGG’s May 2025 remittance “came from the sale of a painting.”

Asked by Manila Bulletin which painting it was, Fong replied: “I was told it was a Monet but I don’t know the details or the history.”

A check with the PCGG website showed a gallery called “The Missing Art Movement,” which listed Marcos Sr.-era artworks that were recovered and sold by the PCGG, located (custodia legis), located but not in the PCGG’s possession, or are still missing.

The lone Monet painting in the PCGG’s The Missing Art Movement gallery is “La Pluie,” whose status was “missing.”

According to the PCGG, the painting has a length of 24 inches and a width of also 24 inches. Its material was oil on canvas.

Monet himself—the French painter who founded Impressionism painting—had signed the lower left of the painting, regarded as a “defining mark” of the artwork.

The painting’s original acquisition cost was $365,500, according to the PCGG.

According to news reports back in 2013, the Philippine government had been maintaining its legal claim to another Monet painting believed to be part of the Marcoses’ ill-gotten wealth, called “Le Bassin aux Nympheas.”

This other Monet painting, which was once part of the Marcoses’ collection of Impressionist art, was reportedly sold in London in 2010 for $43 million by Vilma Bautista, former social secretary to former first lady Imelda Marcos, the mother of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.

In 2019, veteran journalist Gerry Lirio reported that the Duterte administration sought $30 million from British billionaire Alan Howard in exchange for dropping a lawsuit over his 2010 purchase of “Le Bassin aux Nympheas,” which is said to be one of the most expensive paintings owned by Imelda.

A year earlier, Lirio also reported that Monet’s “L’Eglise a La Seine a Vetheuil”, one of three paintings seized from Bautista, was sold at Christie’s New York for $2.6 million in November 2018.

The PCGG’s The Missing Art Movement gallery, set up in 2017, is subtitled “The Art of Stealing,” with a hashtag: #ShowMetheMonet

“After the EDSA Revolution, the PCGG unearthed evidence that the Marcoses amassed a vast collection of artwork worth millions of dollars grossly disproportionate to their legal income, including those from the Old Masters such as Van Gogh, Picasso and Monet. Some have been recovered, but most have not. It is time to get them back,” read the description of the gallery.

Last year, Fong told Manila Bulletin that the PCGG in September 2024 submitted to her office a list of its privatization pipeline, which shall be up for approval by the interagency Privatization Council (PrC).

In 2022, the PCGG also sold its former office building and lot located at a prime location along EDSA for ₱800 million, whose proceeds had been remitted to national coffers and recorded by the BTr under an escrow account.

Since 1990, the PCGG raised a total of about ₱120.5 billion from the disposition of Martial Law-era assets.

Before the Benigno Aquino III administration stepped down in 2016, the PrC gave its go-ahead to sell about ₱658-million worth of so-called “Hawaii Jewelry” that belonged to Imelda.

Back then, the PCGG said three Marcos jewelry collections—called Hawaii, Malacañang and Roumeliotes—had been estimated by auction houses Christie’s and Sotheby’s to be worth a total of at least ₱1 billion, in 2016 prices.

The Hawaii collection is composed of about 300 jewelry pieces confiscated by the United States (US) customs bureau in the namesake American state after the Marcoses fled the country in 1986.

This collection includes a 25-carat “extremely rare” pink diamond believed to be previously owned by a Mogul emperor, which had been estimated to be valued at least $5 million.

Last month, the Marcos Jr. administration slashed its 2025 privatization revenue target to just ₱5 billion from the original program of ₱101 billion.