MANILA, Philippines - "We practically own everything in the Philippines-from electricity, telecommunications, airline, banking, beer and tobacco, newspaper publishing, television stations, shipping, oil and mining, hotels and beach resorts, down to coconut milling, small farms, real estate and insurance," said Imelda Marcos, talking to the Inquirer in 1998 while she disclosed her plan to file an intervention suit against the cronies of her husband.
Imelda said the Marcos family accumulated its wealth "without dipping into government coffers."
Former Senate President Jovito Salonga challenged Imelda's claim, saying that the Marcoses had started raiding the government coffers barely two years into the first term of President Ferdinand Marcos in 1965, with his wife using intelligence funds to finance her foreign trips as first lady and stashing part of the money in Swiss banks.
In his book "Presidential Plunder: The Quest for the Marcos Ill-gotten Wealth," Salonga enumerated the ways by which the Marcoses acquired and safeguarded ill-gotten wealth.
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