People living in a settlement walk about, as the skyline of Manila's financial district is seen in the background, on August 17, 2017. ( AFP / Noel CELIS)

Posts falsely claim former Philippine leader Aquino 'cleared' dictator Marcos of fraud

This article is more than one year old.
Published on June 30, 2021 at 09:23
2 min read
By AFP Philippines

Multiple social media posts have shared a document purportedly signed by former Philippine President Corazon Aquino which they claim cleared her predecessor Ferdinand Marcos of all fraud and embezzlement charges. But this claim is false: the document is fabricated. The Philippine Supreme Court has ruled multiple times that former dictator Marcos accumulated wealth fraudulently during his presidency.

The purported government document was featured in this YouTube video. It has been viewed more than 70,000 times.

It reads in part: “The wealth of former and late Pres. Ferdinand Marcos are not ill-gotten and thereby reconsidered as divine wealth… and are cleared for whatsoever legal probability and proceedings from this date and in the future.”

A screenshot of the misleading post taken on June 26, 2021

The document purports to show the signatures of former president Corazon Aquino -- who succeeded Ferdinand Marcos after he was toppled in 1986 -- and her executive secretary and now senator Franklin Drilon. It shows the date “June 29, 1992”.

The YouTube video's Tagalog-language caption translates to English as: “The media refuses to report about an issuance from Cory that proves there is no case against the Marcoses!”

Marcos is estimated to have siphoned off between $5 billion and $10 billion during his term, according to this World Bank report.

An identical document was also shared alongside a similar claim on this blog; and on Facebook here, here and here.

But the claim is false: the document is fabricated.

Hoax document

The Philippine Supreme Court has ruled three times that Marcos and his family committed fraud on a huge scale and has ordered them to repay millions of dollars, AFP reported here.

Keyword searches here on officialgazette.gov.ph -- the online portal of the Philippine government that publishes all presidential documents -- found no such memorandum.

The archives show Aquino only signed one issuance on June 29, 1992.

It relates to a watershed reserve in the central Philippines. It does not mention Marcos.

The purported document in the misleading posts has been fabricated.

A visual analysis found the hoax document's creator failed to capitalise both words in the phrase “Our Lord”.

The latter was consistently used in genuine Aquino issuances, for example here, here and here.

Below is a screenshot comparison of the fabricated document (L) and Aquino’s official issuance on June 29, 1992 (R):

In response to the misleading posts, the office of Senator Drilon told AFP the document is fabricated.

“We confirm that there was no proclamation regarding President Marcos’ ill-gotten wealth signed by Sen. Drilon when he was executive secretary,” a representative told AFP on June 28, 2021.

The misleading posts were also debunked by Philippine media organisation Rappler here.

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