His visit was to go unnoticed.
While Ferdinand Marcos Junior, son of the dictator of the same name (in power from 1965 to 1986), won the presidential election on May 9, he went this week to the home of his mother, Imelda Marcos, located in San Juan to celebrate his victory.
For the occasion, the communication teams of the man nicknamed "Bongbong" filmed his arrival for the local channel TV Patrol.
And the decor, rich in gilding and numerous paintings hung proudly on the walls, did not escape viewers.
In particular the Sleeping Woman VI
canvas
attributed to Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), which should have been returned to the State eight years ago.
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Indeed, in 2014, the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG), an institutional body that works to recover ill-gotten gains headed at the time by Andres Bautista, carried out a search of the homes and offices of the Marcos family. .
Of all these anti-corruption visits, only the searches at the house in San Juan, a town east of Manila inland, bore fruit: fifteen paintings were seized, including
Sleeping Woman VI
attributed to Pablo Picasso, reports the Filipino investigative media Rappler, founded by Maria Ressa, Nobel Peace Prize 2021.
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But for former civil servant Andres Bautista, the work that was seized in 2014 is not authentic.
"Personally, I know what we seized was fake, so it (the real one) is still with them
," he told Rappler.
An opinion shared by Ruben Carranza, also a former commissioner:
"Ms. Marcos is used to buying fake paintings and lending these fakes to exhibit them
," he said, adding that the dictator's widow has already
" had fake glue jewelry made and lent fake paintings to a museum in Manila during the dictatorship, claiming they were original and expensive
.
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And for Ruben Carranza,
“the fact that she is exposing it now shows not only the duplicity of Ms. Marcos, but also the extravagance she thinks she is going for, so that the Filipinos can see them… It is even worse “
, he expressed himself, according to the remarks reported by
The Guardian
.
“It shows an absolutely insensitive attitude towards Filipinos.
They weren't just made to believe that [the Marcoses] had gold.
Now they are making them believe, once again, that they have so much wealth that they can flaunt it whenever they want
,” he said.
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Inscribed in the pure tradition of the cubist movement, the 54cm by 73cm canvas represents a completely naked woman, with a color palette ranging from blue to green, lying on an orange and yellow bed.
Colors that the Filipinos were able to see for the last time in 2019, as part of a report on Imelda Marcos produced by the American Lauren Greenfield.
Called
The Kingmaker
, it highlights the efforts of the Marcos family to restore their image following the dictatorial period of Father Ferdinand Marcos.
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And in the report, several sequences stop at the many works owned by the mother.
"[My husband] said, Imelda, I know how to make money properly and you know how to spend money properly, because you buy beauty
," she recalled during the documentary.
The media
The Sun
reports, also at this time, that these images triggered a new search at the Marcos family home, but that no painting had been found.
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A painting estimated at 145 million euros
With this new visibility, the Marcos family is not immune to new searches and searches on the works they own, especially since the family is currently subject to dozens of legal cases. which concern the origin of his wealth, specifies
The Guardian
.
More recently, Imelda Marcos appealed a criminal conviction handed down in 2018 for seven corruption charges.
In total, according to the British newspaper, nearly ten billion dollars of objects would have been looted during the power of Father Marcos until his dismissal in 1986, which includes some 200 works of art including
Sleeping Woman VI
.
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Invited to comment on the authenticity of the work, Vic Rodriguez, the spokesperson for the new president Ferdinand Marcos Junior,
"dodged the question at a press conference"
, reports
The Guardian
, which prevents assigning a value certain at work.
Nevertheless, in an interview given to ABS-CBN's Teleradyo service on May 13, former PCGG official Andres Bautista estimated the
"lost"
Picasso painting at 8 billion pesos (145 million euros). it had to be sold and authenticated, in view of old record sales like his painting
Le Rêve.
“I hope the new officials of the PCGG can look into the matter, as well as the Office of the Solicitor General”
, said Andres Bautista.
Before concluding:
“Please grab it while there's still time”
.
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