Marcos’ Victims Settle Case for $150 Million

The 13-year legal battle to secure compensation for human rights victims of former Philippine dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos appears to have finally concluded, with the announcement Wednesday of a $150-million settlement.

The announcement represents the culmination of years of on-and-off negotiations, complicated by the fractious nature of Philippine politics and the fact that Marcos’ money was tied up in Swiss bank accounts with contested ownership.

The settlement marks the first time that plaintiffs in an international human rights case have been able to recover substantial funds from a former dictator. In the past, victories in such cases have often been more symbolic than real, said Joan Fitzpatrick, an international law professor at the University of Washington who has been monitoring the case.

The case already made history once before, in 1995, when the estimated 9,500 plaintiffs in the class action--victims of torture and heirs of people who were summarily executed during Marcos’ reign--won a $1.9-billion jury verdict against the estate of the former dictator, who died in Hawaii in 1989. It was the first time a class action had been utilized on behalf of alleged victims of human rights violations.

The jury found that Marcos was responsible for massive human rights abuses, including torture, murder and “disappearances of fellow Filipinos.” A federal appeals court later upheld that verdict.

But until now the plaintiffs have been unable to collect a penny. Because of that, even though the settlement was far less than the verdict, human rights experts hailed it as what Fitzpatrick called “a momentous development.”

“Human rights victims can be euphoric over this settlement,” said attorney Robert A. Swift of Philadelphia. “Never before have human rights victims in any country recovered on a judgment against the perpetrator. It is no longer satisfactory to just demonstrate vile abuses in a court of law. Victims must be compensated.”

Swift and Sherry P. Broder of Honolulu represented the plaintiffs.

James P. Linn, the Oklahoma City lawyer who represented Marcos’ widow Imelda, and John J. Bartko, the San Francisco attorney who represented her son Ferdinand R. Marcos, also applauded the deal.

“Any time you can settle a judgment like that [$1.9 billion] for that kind of money [$150 million], you’ve got a good deal,” Linn said.

He quickly added that he thought the settlement also was good for the plaintiffs because in his opinion they had little chance of collecting otherwise.

“Money is being freed up that will allow resolution of a lot of problems in the Philippines,” said Bartko.

If the plaintiffs are compensated equally, they would receive about $16,000 each. The annual per capita income in the Philippines was $1,085 in 1996, the latest year for which figures are available.

U.S. District Judge Manuel L. Real tentatively approved the massive pact Wednesday and will hold a final hearing on the settlement in Honolulu on April 14. Real presided over the 1995 trial.

Swift and Broder have had considerable trouble collecting on their clients’ massive judgment. So far they have garnered only $1 million stemming from a settlement over the sale of a Marcos house and a Mercedes in Hawaii.

They were unable to persuade two large Swiss banks to turn over to Real $475 million in Marcos-linked funds that had been deposited in the names of dummy foundations based in Lichtenstein, Marcos cronies and aliases used by Marcos and his wife.

A legal battle over the money dragged on in Real’s court for several years. A mediation in Hong Kong in 1996 ended in deadlock.

Then, in December 1997, the Swiss Supreme Court ruled that the Marcos assets should be placed in an escrow account at the Philippine National Bank until the Philippine government proved in court that it was entitled to some of the money and the human rights victims were compensated. That ruling set off another round of negotiations.

After new Philippine President Joseph Estrada took office last year, he tried to resolve the impasse. To aid in these efforts, the Philippines retained the services of former Sen. Birch Bayh (D-Ind.), now a Washington lawyer.

The Times was unable to reach Bayh for comment, but lawyers for both sides said he played a key role in forging the deal.

The secret Marcos funds found in the Swiss banks have grown to about $590 million, and the settlement pot will come out of those funds.

That will leave $440 million. It remains unclear how much of that the government will keep and how much the Marcoses will get. “I assume it will be split somewhat,” Linn said Wednesday. He said the family was involved in continuing negotiations with the Philippine government.

Decisions about how to apportion the payments are expected to be made after hearings are held in the Philippines by New York attorney Sol Schreiber, who has served as a special master in the case for several years.

It is possible that there will be different levels of payments depending on the damages suffered by each plaintiff or dead relative. For example, relatives of persons who were “disappeared” or summarily executed may receive more than the torture victims.

Earlier in the case, Schreiber conducted hearings to set a benchmark for compensatory damages based on interviewing a representative sample of claimants. Schreiber interviewed 137 randomly selected claimants and their witnesses in 1994. After determining that 131 of the claims were valid, he considered a variety of factors, such as the method and duration of torture, the victim’s age, medical bills, the mental anguish of a victim’s family and lost earnings in calculating damages.

He came up with benchmark figures of $51,719 for a torture victim, $107,583 for an individual who had been “disappeared” and $128,515 for summary execution. This method yielded total compensatory damages of $767 million--about five times as much as the settlement pot now.

Although this settlement appears to resolve the bulk of Imelda Marcos’ legal problems in the United States, Santa Monica attorney Paul Hoffman said it does not end them all. Hoffman represented three clients who were separately awarded millions in the same case that yielded the $1.9 billion. He said that his clients and 21 other individuals represented by a San Francisco law firm were not part of the settlement agreement and are weighing their options. They, too, have been unable to collect on their judgments.

“Finally,” Broder said, “the victims of torture and their survivors will have achieved private enforcement of these universally acknowledged rights. This monetary result gives meaning to the principle that torture is universally condemned.”