November 10, 2025
The Campaign Against the Return of the Marcoses and Martial Law (CARMMA) marks the seventh anniversary of Imelda Marcos’ conviction on seven counts of graft amid the raging corruption scandal in the country.
The ruling, handed down on November 9, 2018 by the Sandiganbayan, found the late dictator Marcos’ widow guilty of seven counts of funneling around US$200 million to various private Swiss foundations while she was Metro Manila governor. She was sentenced to 6 to 11 years in prison for every count, or a total of 42 to 77 years. But in a testament to the Philippine justice system’s execrable class bias, Imelda Marcos has not spent a single day behind bars.
This is in stark contrast to the plight of ordinary detainees who could not afford bail and are immediately hauled to prison after being convicted. This is also in direct opposition to the cases of political prisoners who, upon being unjustly convicted on the basis of manufactured evidence, have the prison gates slammed shut in their faces forthwith.
The Marcos Jr. regime has been orchestrating the anti-corruption investigations to focus on the horrendous crimes of its political rivals. Deftly, it has sought to deflect attention away from the Marcos family’s long history of plunder and Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s role as the approving authority behind every anomalous flood control project funded through unprogrammed appropriations.
The anniversary of Imelda Marcos’ conviction for graft is not only a sharp reminder that the Marcos clan has not yet been held accountable for its thievery. It also jolts us into recognizing that Marcos Jr. is continuing his family’s legacy of plunder as he sits on top of a massive bureaucrat capitalist crime syndicate that systematically siphons public monies through fraud-ridden flood-control and other infrastructure projects, to the detriment of the people’s interests.
That there is no fundamental difference between Marcos Jr. and his detestable predecessor Duterte is a reality that the current regime’s hypocritical anti-corruption drive will not be able to conceal for long.
Already, the burgeoning people’s movement against corruption is reminiscent of the massive demonstrations of the 1980s that eventually led to the ouster of the elder Marcos’ hated dictatorship. CARMMA believes that a powerful people’s movement for justice and accountability can do away with the likes of Marcos Jr. and the Dutertes and usher in a better society for our people.
