Juan Ponce Enrile disembarking from a
Philippine Airlines Boeing 747-200 during Marcos' state visit to Washington, D.C., in September 1982. Enrile served the Marcos Administration under many positions. He was Commissioner of Customs in 1965, and rose to become Defense Minister in 1970. He resigned a year later to run unsuccessfully for the Senate, but was quickly reinstated in 1972. The Marcos administration also fabricated an ambush of Enrile's car, claiming it was perpetrated by militants. This staged act served as justification for the declaration of martial law. Enrile later revealed in a 1985 interview that the attack on his car had been faked. He later turned on Marcos when he, along with then-Vice Chief of Staff of the AFP and Chief of the
Philippine Constabulary Lt. Gen.
Fidel V. Ramos (future 12th President of the Philippines) and a battalion of soldiers and officers under the
Reform the Armed Forces Movement lead by
Gregorio Honasan,
Victor Batac, and Eduardo Kapunan withdraw their support, triggering the 1986
People Power Revolution. For the majority of the martial law period, Enrile was in charge of all the armed forces, which were responsible for many human rights abuses and
summary executions. Enrile was also involved with many cases of corruption, namely: • involvement in the smuggle of goods during his appointment at the Bureau of Customs, particularly several shiploads of imported rice in La Union. • with Marcos, gave concessions to politically favored logging companies, such as to Juan Tuvera, the presidential assistant, and a nephew of Isabela governor Faustino Dy, a close Marcos associate. Publicly, Enrile made pronouncements against
illegal logging, yet allowed logging concessions to their associates. Alfonso Lim, another close associate of the Marcoses, was allowed seven logging concessions with a total area of 600,000 hectares, a number far from the 100,000-hectare constitutional limit to any one family. Enrile also owns San Jose Lumber, which is a 95,777-hectare logging concession. • involvement with the
Coconut Levy Fund scam, which was originally a tax plan for coconut farmers which will give them opportunities to invest stocks and buy industry-related businesses for their benefit. However, Enrile, with Danding Cojuangco, allegedly used the earnings of the Fund for his own personal and business affairs. Cojuangco allegedly used the levy earnings to purchase
San Miguel Corporation, the biggest food and beverage conglomerate in the Philippines. The Philippine Commission on Good Government stated that nearly P9.8 billion was collected from farmers from 1971-1983. Current coconut levy assets amount to P93 billion.
Antonio Floirendo Sr. Banana magnate Floirendo began his business career in
Davao City in the 1940s, when he found it favorable to cultivate relationships with running politicians. He contributed to Marcos' 1965 and 1969 presidential campaign funds, and it was in his Davao estate where Marcos launched his 1969 presidential campaign in southern Philippines. Under the Marcos administration, Floirendo's company Tagum Agricultural Development Company, Inc. (TADECO) leased 6,000 hectares of prime, fertile, government land and employed prison labor from the neighboring prisons. This project was formerly halted during the Macapagal Administration. It violated the 1935 Constitution of the Philippines and Philippine corporate law, which permitted only up to 1,024 land acquisition. Sen. Lorendo Tañada chaired a Blue Ribbon Committee investigation into the matter, which caused Floirendo to retreat the plan to wait for a more favorable political climate. His plan finally came into fruition after Marcos' second term. He purchased two expensive units at the St. James Towers in Manhattan. He purchased a $1.35 million mansion in Makiki Heights in Hawaii. The mansion, known as the Helen Knudsen estate, sits directly across the Tantoco house where the Marcoses lived in exile. He purchased the $4.5 million Lindenmere estate in Long Island New York, and a $2.5 million Beverly Hills property. Floirendo escaped the Philippines a day before Ferdinand Marcos was exiled to Hawaii. In 1987, Floirendo turned over PHP 70 million in cash to the
Presidential Commission on Good Government, as well as titles for the Lindenmere Estate, the Olympic Towers apartments, and the Makiki Heights Drive property. He admitted transferring amounts of $600,000, $2 million, and $4 million to George Hamilton, an American actor involved in the Marcos' business ties and federal fraud and racketeering cases. They were supposedly loans from Imelda Marcos, who he alleges to have ordered him these transfers. He also admitted that the Marcos-tied corporations of Ancor, Calno, Kuodo and Camelton belonged to him. Cojuangco and Juan Ponce Enrile were involved in the
Coco Levy Fund Scam, which taxed small farmers with the promise of shares in the coconut investment company (Cocofund). However, farmers benefitted nothing from this levy, as the middle-men did not return receipts that proved they paid the coconut levy and were entitled to equity in the company. With the backing of the Marcos government and the wealth from the levy fund, Cojuangco was able to completely vertically integrate the coconut trade industry by controlling the financing through UCPB and by buying out Unicom, which was the entity in charge of manufacturing and trading of coconut and coconut by-products. Cojuangco's wealth increased rapidly, and by the peak of martial law, the value of all the assets he controlled was $1.5 billion, or 25% of the GNP. The Marcos government gave favors to
San Miguel Corporation (SMC). For example, when taxes for liquor and cigarettes were raised in January 1986, excise taxes on beer nevertheless decreased, beer being one of the main products of SMC. The tax cut gave SMC $40 million worth of savings that year. A 2012 Supreme Court decision ordered the return of ₱71 billion in coconut levy funds to coconut farmers.
Roberto Benedicto Roberto Benedicto was Marcos' former classmate and fraternity brother at the
UP Law School. When Marcos was president, Benedicto became part of his small circle in
Malacañan, one of the few with full access even to private quarters. Under the Marcos administration, he served as Ambassador to Japan and Chief of the
Philippine National Bank, which was the largest state-owned bank at the time. He permitted huge loans for business of other cronies and associates. He used PNB to grant loans for his shipping company, Northern Lines, and his sugar business. His election as Japanese Ambassador allowed him to develop high-level contacts in Japan. Working with President Marcos, they ratified the Treaty of Amity, Commerce and Navigation between Japan and the Philippines, which gave Japan a "most-favored nation" status. This agreement gave Japan undue advantage in using the country's natural resources, which was the primary reason the Philippine Senate did not ratify the treaty for 13 years. Benedicto, understanding the business interests of the Japanese, arranged lucrative joint-venture operations between Japanese corporations and his own. His role as Ambassador also gave him control of the $550 million Japanese war reparations money. He also owned 14 hectares of real estate in Bacolod City, 13.5 billion shares in Oriental Petroleum, and membership shares in golf and country clubs estimated at $491,000. from sweeping and mopping floors to becoming one of the most influential people in Philippine history. However, a closer inspection at his history will reveal deep connections and cronyism to President
Ferdinand Marcos, who was able to launch Tan's immense wealth through sky-high tariff rates on imported cigarettes, under-the-table tax breaks, and government exemptions, all of which allowed Lucio Tan to have a "virtual monopoly for over 40 years in the Philippine Market".
Fortune Tobacco Corp, founded in 1966 (FTC), is the epicenter of Lucio Tan's fortune. While it is unclear how much of the market FTC cornered in 1980, estimates range from 60% to 77%. During his appointment, 20 power plants using hydroelectric, thermal, geothermal energy were completed. A major controversy in his career were the government-imposed levies and taxes on the retail price of gasoline. The gross price of regular gasoline per liter was Php 2.20. After taxes it totaled to Php5.05, making taxes more than 50% of the retail cost. During the government's corruption probe during the Marcos regime, it was found that Velasco's net worth was estimated to be around $50 million by 1986. He had several million-dollar real estate properties around the world, such as a $1.5 million mansion, a $675,000 condominium both in California, several houses around Metro-Manila, and a reported resort house on the Bataan peninsula only reachable by helicopter or boat. Apart from these properties, Velasco also chaired several government and private corporations, in many petroleum, coal mining, transportation, mineral exploration, and shipping businesses. During the probe, Velasco claimed that he earned his wealth before his appointment under the Marcos administration. However, probers discovered that his net worth was $5.4 million before he joined the government and it ballooned to $50 million, an 825% increase in only 13 years. Cruz took over PAL after the former owner Benigno Toda was forced out through a Presidential Order in 1977. This was a result of Toda falling out with the Marcoses as the former charged Imelda $6 million for her overseas junkets. Throughout his chairmanship, the airline was poorly managed and steadily lost money. This was due to First Lady Imelda Marcos' indiscriminate international trips, GSIS was originally established for financial aid of low-salaried government employees, providing investments, pensions, and housing loans. In 1980, under Cruz's administration, house loans were phased out. Instead, the GSIS funded Marcos-connected companies and Imelda-inspired projects. Of GSIS' total budget of $1.3 billion, 65% or $843 million went into Imelda's lucrative projects, such as luxury hotels made to impress delegates of the IMF-World Bank conference. Philippine Village Hotel,
Philippine Plaza, and
Manila Hotel. Cruz also worked with Imelda's brother, Amb.
Benjamin Romualdez and organized the Phil-China Friendship Hotels Corp. using GSIS funds in 1980, where the plan was to build two 500-room hotels in
Guangzhou and
Beijing. He later became the head of
Construction and Development Corporation of the Philippines (CDCP) which built many of the country's dams, highways, and bridges, including the
San Juanico Bridge, which was a major project that connected Leyte and Samar. CDCP also built many lucrative projects at the behest of the first lady Imelda Marcos, such as a land-reclamation project to create a 240-hectare while beach, a huge complex of native-style pavilions, all to impress foreign delegates of international events and conferences. Government probes have found documents that suggested Marcos received millions of dollars in kickbacks in government construction projects from Cuenca's company. CDCP experienced remarkable growth and a sudden collapse. He was chief of steel companies that were favored through funding and regulations that ensured lucrative markets. He was also given permission to borrow rifle stocks from the Armed Forces of the Philippines, which he sold back to the Philippine Constabulary for a profit. Elizalde left the Philippines in 1983, reportedly with millions of dollars in funds raised for the protection of the
Tasadays. The points that were mentioned in the case includes the alleged improper payments of hundreds of thousands of dollars by the two businessmen to the Marcoses in exchange for a contract to supply Kawasaki scrap loaders and Toyota rear dump trucks, grant of three consecutive year special accommodations, privileges, and exemptions from the
Central Bank through increased dollar import quota allocation for the importation of Toyota vehicles for Delta Motor and air-conditioning and refrigerating equipments and obtaining a multi-million peso emergency loans as additional capital infusion to Filipinas Bank, a banking institution owned by Silverio.
Herminio Disini Herminio Disini was married to Imelda's first cousin, Dr. Paciencia Escolin, who served as her personal physician. He was also known to be one of the golfing buddies of Ferdinand. In 1970, Disini established Philippine Tobacco Filters Corporation (PTFC). While the investment was minimal, Disini's big break came when Marcos issued Presidential Decree 750 on July 21, 1975, where it increased the tariff on raw materials imported by the competitor by a 100%. This forced the competitor out of business. Disini became infamous for brokering the deal for the
Bataan Nuclear Power Plant. The PCGG would later order Disini to return US$50.6 million in commissions he earned from the deal. Marcos allegedly received US$80 million in kickbacks from the project. The
Office of the Solicitor General would also file that Marcos return PHP22.2 billion to the government for his conspiracy with Disini to defraud the government. In 1973, Marcos awarded Disini's Cellophil Resources Corporation a 200,000 hectare logging and paper-pulp concession that was partially responsible for massive
deforestation in the Philippines during martial law.
Indigenous peoples in the Cordillera region—supported by environmentalists, church organizations, academics, and the
Free Legal Assistance Group—organized a protest movement that helped shut down Cellophil after the fall of the Marcos dictatorship in 1986. The
Supreme Court of the Philippines First Division in the August 29, 2023 12-page resolution reduced from P1 billion to P100 million the temperate damages that Herminio T. Disini estate must pay for brokering the 1974 deal behind the now mothballed $2.3-billion
Bataan Nuclear Power Plant. “Wherefore, this Court resolves to deny with finality the Republic of the Philippines' Oct. 28, 2021 Motion for Reconsideration. Petitioner Herminio T. Disini's Comment (Re: Motion for Reconsideration) with Omnibus Motion as well as his Supplement to the Comment with Omnibus Motion are noted and partially granted. The award of temperate damages is reduced to P100,000,000. All other aspects of the assailed Decision stand. No further pleadings or motions shall be entertained in this case. Let the entry of judgment be issued immediately", it ruled.
Peter Sabido Jose Yao Campos Enriquez and Panlilio families Trinidad Diaz Enriquez hails from the province of
Leyte, and as such cultivated her relationship with Imelda. The family had humble beginnings with their D&E Restaurant in
Quezon City. Winning favor from Imelda and receiving favorable treatment and loans from the government, the family was able to put up Sulo Hotel,
Philippine Village Hotel, and
Silahis International Hotel. Enriquez's catering business expanded due to the contracts received from Imelda. Enriquez was also able to gain contracts with Philippine Airlines through Roman Cruz. Trinidad's son-in-law Rebecco Panlilio would later lead the construction of the largest tourism investment in the Philippines at that time, Puerto Azul, at the mouth of
Manila Bay in
Ternate,
Cavite. The said resort expropriated more than 3,000 hectares of land from residents who have been living at the site for generations. == Suspected role in Marcos' "
techniques of plunder"==