Purloined luxuries for exhibit
Remember former first lady Imelda Marcos’ jewelry, art, and shoe collection, many of which went on exhibit for their jaw-dropping worth and shock value? More on this later.
What a pleasant surprise for us to learn that a 2023 Rolls-Royce (RR) Cullinan, one of the 30 plus luxury vehicles seized from Discaya couple Curlee and Sarah, has been bought on Feb. 11 at a Bureau of Customs auction for P29,026,000, slightly above the floor price of P29,025,132.58. The buyer was Pio Velasco, owner of the Igorot Stone Kingdom theme park in Baguio City who said that he planned to preserve the RR “to save it from eventual destruction if ever and to preserve a piece of history … [because] it opened the floodgates for the nation to take interest in this rampant corruption.”
Remember the RR with a free umbrella tucked somewhere near the front seat? Sarah Discaya had breezily admitted in a TV interview that the tacky freebie made her decide to buy the car. Besides the RR, the Discayas owned a fleet with brand names that meant wealth and luxury—Cadillac, Bentley, Maserati, Lincoln Navigator, etc. (For the list, read “Discayas’ Rolls-Royce finally sold; buyer calls it ‘historic,’” Headline, 2/12/26)
But it was that RR umbrella that first became the talk of the town, a rainy day necessity the public could make the object of their seething and ridicule. The rest is history unfolding in the realm of massive corruption in infrastructure projects that involved billions of pesos in government funds funneled into the pockets of plunderers. The Discayas’ contracts with the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) were the source of the Discayas’ astounding wealth. That much Sarah had admitted.
Thanks to Pasig City Mayor Vico Sotto, the previously unnoticed rags-to-riches interviews by two TV hosts on the Discayas’ luxurious lifestyle suddenly came to light. (Aspiring to be mayora, Sarah ran against Sotto in the last elections and lost miserably.)
The then newly minted DPWH Secretary Vince Dizon became the man of the hour as he began to uncover ghost and substandard flood control projects and called down fire and brimstone on those involved. The Senate and the House of Representatives became the arena for persons to be presented and questioned, for them to confess if need be. Some are now in jail without bail and facing charges, a former senator and the Discayas among them. But, yes, there’s more of them out there.
Why exhibit the purloined loot? Instead of using the word stolen, I use the word purloined because it seems to suggest an element of stealth and wiliness. And what is the importance of people seeing for themselves what were purloined and recovered? Velasco of Igorot Stone Kingdom gave one good reason.
These luxury vehicles are not Exhibit A for the courts only. These are proofs of wrongdoing of shocking magnitude that people need to see. I wish more of these proofs could be put on display, if not by their buyers, by the government agencies that still have them. Just a thought—who, no matter how wealthy, would want to be seen being chauffeur-driven in these luxury cars? Only the nouveau riche perhaps or a pair of newlyweds. Or fetishist owners who want to gaze at them as real possessions at last, unlike the matchbox Lamborghinis they couldn’t afford in their childhood.
Sometime in 1990s, Heidi Perez Cruz, the person in charge of the Goldenberg mansion (now part of the Malacañang heritage mansions) gave me a private walking tour of the museum-like display of Imelda’s “crown jewels.” Many of the items were reportedly seized either before the Marcoses were airlifted to safety in Hawaii or after they arrived there when people power against the 14-year Marcos dictatorship was at its peak on Feb. 25, 1986. I do not know where these jewels are now—with the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas or with the National Museum? Will Filipinos ever get to see them?
Imelda’s signature shoe collection had also been exhibited in Marikina City, once known as the shoe capital of the Philippines.
As to the art collection, I know that Robert Swift, lawyer of martial law victims/claimants who filed a class suit against the Marcos estate, continues to go after expensive paintings by art masters that Imelda had acquired. He was able to win for the claimants a multimillion-dollar Monet painting. The Inquirer did publish a list of paintings that are still out there.
Some years ago, I did an article on the University of the Philippines’ Vargas Museum exhibit of works by European and Asian artists that the Presidential Commission on Good Government had seized from the Marcoses’ abodes. These were added proofs that besides their so-called hidden wealth (a portion already returned by the Swiss government for martial law victims), there exists an art trove possessed by the once most powerful family of the land, a family that ruled with excess and fell in disgrace 40 years ago five days from now, thanks to people power.
Alas, a new generation of Filipinos has burrowed out of the woodwork and transmogrified into plunderers.
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