MANILA – Albay Representative Edcel C. Lagman on Saturday said in a statement that President Rodrigo Duterte cannot absolve Ilocos Sur Governor Imelda “Imee” Marcos and former Senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, Jr. as sinless because “they were old enough when documented atrocities and plunder were committed by the conjugal dictatorship of Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos.”
Lagman said the two younger Marcoses “have been for a long time and until now culpable beneficiaries of the ill-gotten hoard of their father, the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos.”
Lagman said that, although they were teenagers when martial law was declared in September 1972, “they attained the age of majority shortly after the proclamation of martial law and they were already adults during the height of the martial law regime.
“When Imee Marcos headed the Kabataang Barangay after she was handpicked by then President Marcos, she was accused of the murder of Archimedes Trajano who was reportedly killed by her security escorts and found dead two days after an open forum where Trajano challenged the credentials of Imee Marcos.”
In August 31, 1977, Trajano, a student of the Mapua Institute of Technology, questioned during a meeting at the Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila Imee’s capacity to lead the national youth organization that she assumed as the presidential daughter.
“The Hawaii District Court awarded $4.16 million to the Trajano family in 1991, which award was affirmed by the US Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit Court in 1992.
“The effort of the Trajano family to enforce in the Philippines the foreign judgment was quashed by the Philippine Supreme Court on the technicality of a defective substituted service of summons to Imee Marcos, who claimed that she was then a resident of Singapore when the summons was served at the Alexandra Homes in Pasig City, her reported address,” Lagman said.
