FACT CHECK: Impossible for Marcos to have a billion-ton gold bullion deposit

Claim: A certificate of entitlement allegedly signed by former president Ferdinand E. Marcos shows that the late president deposited 1.1 billion metric tons of gold bullion in a special trust deposit. 

Rating: FALSE

Why we fact-checked this: The YouTube video containing the claim has over 7,700 views as of writing. 

Not enough gold: The declared amount of gold bullion in the alleged certificate is just ridiculous. There’s not enough gold mined throughout history for Marcos to deposit this much gold in a trust account. 

According to the latest World Gold Council (WGC) records, the total above-ground stocks of gold had only reached 205,231 metric tons in 2022. Above-ground gold refers to all the gold mined throughout history.

The amount of above-ground gold was even way less during Marcos’ time.

According to M. G O’Callaghan’s book The Structure and Operation of the World Gold Market published by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in 1991, only 94,665 metric tons of gold had been mined throughout history. Marcos died in 1989.

The United States Geological Survey (USGS) says that around 244,000 metric tons of gold have been discovered to date, including both above-ground and below-ground gold stock. 

Using these figures, it can be estimated that there are only 38,769 metric tons of gold left to be mined. – Lorenz Pasion/Rappler.com

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