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Presidential aspirant Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. has dismissed the conspiracy theory that the Marcos family stored gold that they would eventually share with Filipinos.

“Sa buong buhay ko, hindi pa ako nakakakita ng gold na ganyan. Marami akong kilalang kung saan-saan naghuhukay pero ako wala pa akong nakitang kahit anong gold na sinasabi nila. Baka may alam sila, sabihan ako,” Marcos Jr. said in an interview with OneNews on Monday, January 25.

(In my whole life, I have not seen any gold like that. I know many who’ve been digging here and there, but I haven’t seen any of the gold that they’ve been saying. Maybe they know something, just let me know.)

Why does this matter?

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Marcos Imbento, Bistado: Walang Tallano Gold – wala, wala, wala!

The presidential aspirant’s statement is his most categorical denial of the conspiracy theory, which has spread in recent years on social media without any denial from his family.

According to the conspiracy theory, over a million metric tons of gold were stored by a pre-colonial Philippine royal Tallano family, whose gold eventually found its way to the Marcoses.

Proponents of the story widely cite a 2006 article in a publication that rauns conspiracy theories as well as a former World Bank employee who also makes up conspiracies.

The Marcos wealth

While there is no evidence that Marcoses stored pre-colonial gold, the Presidential Commission on Good Government, as of September 2021, had recovered P174 billion* ($3.4 Billion) in ill-gotten wealth from the Marcos family, and another P125.9 billion ($2.46 billion) is still being seized. This ill-gotten wealth was amassed while the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos ruled the country.

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BREAKDOWN: P174B recovered from Marcos loot, P125B more to get

Marcos Jr. said on Monday, January 24, that he will not be publicizing his Statements of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth (SALNs), making him the only one out of the top presidential bets for 2022 elections to refuse to release this document that would show his wealth. – Rappler.com

*1$=P51.24