Former Philippine first lady Mrs Imelda Marcos said yesterday it was possible her late husband had accumulated billions of dollars, but it was not looted money and she was willing to share some of it with the poor.
The widow of ousted dictator Ferdinand Marcos also said former president Mrs Corazon Aquino, who inspired a popular revolt in 1986 which ousted her husband, should be banished to an island for accusing the Marcoses of plundering the country.
Mrs Aquino was presumptuous and "playing God", Mrs Marcos told a breakfast forum, reacting to Mrs Aquino's call to Filipinos at a rally last weekend to block the return of the Marcoses to power.
The Philippine government has filed scores of lawsuits against the Marcoses for alleged looting of the Treasury during Ferdinand Marcos's 20 years in power. The courts have dismissed some of the cases but others are pending, held up in the country's slow judicial processes.
Mrs Marcos has insisted her husband, who died in exile in Hawaii in 1989, built up his wealth by trading in gold after the second World War before he became a politician. A Philippine senate committee is holding hearings on allegations by a Manila lawyer that the Marcoses are keeping more than $13 billion and tonnes of gold in banks in Switzerland.
Other Marcos-linked assets amounting to $590 million have been transferred by Switzerland to an escrow account in the Philippines pending a court ruling on who the money belongs to.
"I hope there is, I pray so, that there is $13 billion. It will be possible because Ferdinand Marcos was such a great genius in terms of finance, economics, trading and high-yield investments," Mrs Marcos said.
"He was doing this decades ago and I wouldn't be surprised that there be such asset . . . It's a possibility."
She stressed, however, "it is not looted money".
Mrs Marcos, who celebrated her 70th birthday in July with all-night dancing in a Manila hotel attended by foreign guests, said she was willing to share some of the Marcos assets with the government for projects to aid the poor but refused to talk about a sharing formula.
She said it would not be an admission that the Marcoses were guilty of anything.
"Let it come from us voluntarily . . . It will come from the generosity of our hearts without the spirit of guilt," she said.
Mrs Marcos spoke furiously of Mrs Aquino: "Cory, I think, should be banished to an island. She has caused enough havoc, confusion and ugliness in this country. We must isolate these people."
Mrs Aquino led tens of thousands of Filipinos in a protest on Friday to oppose President Joseph Estrada's plans to amend the constitution and to counter the Mar coses' political comeback.
Marcos's only son, Ferdinand jnr, is now governor in his father's home province of Ilocos Norte, while a daughter, Imee, is a member of the House of Representatives.