Marcos’s alleged gold hoard exceeded PCGG estimate of his loot
MANILA—By the late industrialist Enrique Zobel’s recollections, former strongman Ferdinand Marcos left behind his widow, Imelda, and three children with a cache of gold bars that in 1989 was worth at least $35 billion.
Zobel disclosed the value of Marcos’s gold bars in a 14-page sworn statement issued before the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee at the Philippine Consulate in Honolulu between October 27 and 29, 1999. Sen. Aquilino "Nene" Pimentel Jr., then Blue Ribbon Committee chair, and Sen. Juan Flavier flew to Hawaii in response to two resolutions filed separately by senators Serge Osmeña III and Franklin Drilon seeking to inquire about the gold bars.
Based on his deposition, Zobel said Marcos had $100 billion in his name and part of it was the $35 billion in gold bars.
Now that the Duterte administration and the Marcoses are said to be in talks over the Marcos wealth, Pimentel told ABS-CBN News in an interview last week that it is about time the government ascertained the true value of the family’s gold hoard
Zobel’s disclosure reinforced a long-held view that the Marcoses had kept to themselves a huge treasure on top of the P170-billion Marcos wealth recovered as of 2015 by the government since the four-day peaceful revolt forcibly sent them to Hawaii in February 1986.
Zobel was a close Marcos confidante and supporter, who stood by him until the late strongman died at 72 in exile in Hawaii on September 28, 1989. The tycoon died 15 years later at the Asian Hospital in Muntinlupa. He was 77.
Zobel said Marcos, then weak and ailing, showed him original certificates of the gold bars worth $35 billion, then based on the prevailing price of $400 per ounce, after Marcos asked to borrow some $250 million several months after the Marcos family landed in Hawaii. Marcos signed a promissory note for the loan, with the certificates meant to prove he could pay him back. The promissory note was dated October 17, 1988, one day before was indicted in the United States.
Apart from the gold certificates, which came mostly from Germany, Zobel said Marcos had in possession two more tranches of gold from Suriname, a sovereign state in the northeastern Atlantic coast of South America.
In all, he estimated that Marcos had total wealth of some $100 billion. When Flavier asked him if he heard it right, Zobel replied: “Yes, $100 billion.” That was in 1989.
An investment adviser who once worked at UBS-Philippines where Marcos had maintained an account told ABS-CBN News that Marcos affixed not his signature, but his palm print to make a transaction while in Hawaii. At least two UBS officials — Gertrude Erismann-Peyer, spokesperson of the UBS in Switzerland, and its international watchdog Hans Peter Bauer — admitted Marcos had accounts in the bank.
