Christie’s, Sotheby’s appraise jewelry seized from Marcos heirs

Christie's and Sotheby's on Tuesday appraised the jewelry collection confiscated by the government as part of the ill-gotten wealth of the Marcos family.

Alongside the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) and the Bureau of Customs (BOC), the international art auctioneers did the apppraisal at the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas.

The PCGG and BOC have agreed to auction off the pieces of jewelry estimated to be worth between $5 million to $8 million.

The BOC two weeks ago announced that the agencies had agreed to hold the auction of the jewelry collection through a Memorandum of Understanding signed October 21.

"It shows you the excesses of the Marcos regime. At a time when people were suffering, they were collecting this set of jewelry, so I guess it's a matter of perspective also," PCGG Commissioner Andrew De Castro told reporters on Tuesday.

"It's a physical manifestation of all the talk about the problems with the Marcos regime," he added.

Christie's Senior International Jewelry Director David Warren noted the history of the collection.

"A lot of jewelry unfortunately carries no story. So when you have something like this where there's a big story, a big provenance, it's a provenance that some people are not going to like, it's a provenance that some people are going to find interesting, that some people will love," he said.

"It's a mixture, it's a mixture of emotions, obviously because of the history behind it," Warren added.

The Sandiganbayan Special Division ordered  the jewelry collection forfeited in favor of the government early last year.

This batch is one of the three collections confiscated from the former First lady Imelda Marcos in 1986 after the dictatorship regime led by then-President Ferdinand Marcos was toppled by a people power revolution.

The court said "partially summary judgement is hereby rendered declaring the pieces of jewelry, known as the Malacañang Collection, as ill-gotten, and are hereby forfeited in favor of petitioner Republic of the Philippines.”

The PCGG ealier said it wants to have a full acounting of the P168-billion ill-gotten wealth which was recovered from the Marcos family.

"Since the PCGG's creation in 1986, umaabot na sa P168 billion ang naire-remit namin sa Bureau of Treasury. We want to know where the money were used and how they were used," then PCGG chairman Andres Bautista told GMA News Online earlier this year.

Bautista said the PCGG was willing to work with the Commission on Audit (COA) in doing the accounting, or COA may conduct an indepedent audit.

The P168 billion supposedly included the P70-billion coconut levy fund that was also recovered by the PCGG.

"We in the PCGG have our own records kung saan-saan nagamit yung recovered wealth, but our record is not that comprehensive," Bautista said. —NB/VS, GMA News