Etta Rosales: Don't let Marcoses buy back jewelry

Martial law survivor and former Commission on Human Rights (CHR) chair Etta Rosales has asked the government to see to it that the jewelry collection seized from the Marcoses, which are now up for auction, do not fall back into their hands.

"Now you are going to allow them to buy again and guess what? They will probably buy it with the same ill-gotten wealth that they have not yet given up," Rosales said on Joseph Morong's report for 24 Oras on Tuesday.

For the human rights defender who had endured torture and rape as a political prisoner during the Marcos dictatorship, it would be a good idea to put the jewels on display at a museum as a "permanent reminder of the plunder of the Marcoses and never again."

The collection, valued at P704.8-million, was only part of more than P1 billion worth of assets seized from the Marcoses and their cronies that had yet to be disposed by the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG).

President Rodrigo Duterte has given the go signal to auction off the jewelry, saying the proceeds should to go to the Filipino people who are in urgent need of government aid.

His spokesman, however, said members of the Marcos family may not be prevented from submitting their own bids for the ill-gotten jewelry.

"I do not know of any law prohibiting any person from bidding, if you are qualified," Presidential spokesperson Salvador Panelo said in a briefing. —Margaret Claire Layug/LDF, GMA News