 Welcome to Life in the Law. I'm Karamon Lee, your host today with my special guest, nationally known Honolulu lawyer, Sherry Broder, the first woman president of the Hawaii State Bar Association. Sherry's been an award-winning solo practitioner for years, concentrating in complex litigation. Her legal work also includes international law, environmental law, and rights of native Hawaiians in other areas. She teaches law at UH Richardson School of Law and is the founder of the John Van Dyke Institute of International Law and Justice. She publishes and is also an active community volunteer. Her underlying goal is always seeking social justice. For decades she has represented torture victims who suffered during the Ferdinand Marcos regime. It's been a long haul and recently it's been in the news again. So Sherry, tell us a little bit about the history of the infamous Marcos case and what's been happening. Well, in 1986, Ferdinand Marcos came here to Hawaii. He was overthrown in the People's Revolution. He was a dictator. He had a military dictatorship in the Philippines. So he had been elected in 1972, but when the time came for him to step down because it's a six-year constitutional term in the Philippines, he declared martial law and imposed a dictatorship, dissolved the judiciary, dissolved the legislature. So when he came here to Hawaii, there had been reports, many, many reports of human rights abuses in the Philippines. And I thought, well, why does he get to come to our beautiful state, probably live on the beach with all the money he's stolen from the Filipino people? Why doesn't he go to, you know, Paraguay or Argentina and live with Mengele and Eichmann and other human rights abusers. So I talked to my husband, who was a professor of international law. And both my husband and I had studied at Berkeley Law School with Professor Frank Newman. He was very into human rights, international human rights. And so we talked about it and decided, okay, we're gonna sue him while he's here for human rights abuses during the military dictatorship. So you had a jurisdiction over him because he moved to Hawaii as opposed to any other place. Exactly. Nice thing. Okay, so he and his wife. They were both here, we sued him. And then I read. Was that unusual to be able to sue an individual dictator like that? I mean, had that been done before? You know, this was just part of the developing law. There had been a case, this was 1986. So there had been a case in 1982, Philatiga case, that the Second Circuit, the Federal Court of Appeals had found that the Philatiga family could sue the torturer and murderer of their son, who was in the Paraguayan Military Police Force at the time. They were walking down the streets of New York City and they saw him, so they ran out and sued him. So that was really the first case and the Second Circuit Court of Appeals upheld jurisdiction over the dictator. So we decided to follow the Philatiga case and we talked to Professor Belinda Aquino, who was head of Philippine studies at UH at the time. And she helped us put us together with Agapita Trujano. Her son had been picked up at the college that he was attending by the security forces for IMEI Marcos. So this is in the Philippines. This is in the Philippines. This is in 1976. And he was picked up by the bodyguards for IMEI and the next time anybody saw him, he had brutally tortured cigarette burns and he had been executed basically. This is Professor Aquino's son. No, this is Professor Aquino's outreach into the Filipino community in Hawaii. It was Agapita Trujano's son. I see, Achimedes Trujano. And so we filed a lawsuit on behalf of Mrs. Trujano. And then I read in the New York Times that Robert Swift of Philadelphia had filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of everybody that was tortured, murdered and disappeared. And so, well, of course I wanted to do that, represent everybody, not just the one person. So I called Bob and I said, hey, the case is probably gonna be transferred here to Hawaii and if you wanna co-counsel, let me know. And of course the case was transferred here to Hawaii. So we joined forces. We were up on appeal. Marcos was still alive at that time. He was still alive at the time. And living in Hawaii. And living in Hawaii, exactly. Yeah, so we, the first thing that happened was the case was dismissed by the federal trial judge for active state, exactly for the reason that you brought up to begin with, which is can you sue a former head of state? He may have been a dictator, but he was a head of state while after he's out of office. So that, the judge dismissed it on the active state doctrine and then that case went up on appeal. That was, the Torjano case was run first on these issues. And that case went up on appeal to the Ninth Circuit and the Ninth Circuit ruled yes. If he's a former head of state. So for instance, in more recent years, Mugabe, who was also a military dictator in Zimbabwe, he came to a meeting at the United Nations and he was sued. But he was at that time still active head of state. And so the courts ruled that you couldn't sue him. Until he went out of office. Well, they didn't say when you could. They just said you can't sue him while he's presently head of state. So we sued him and then the cases went forward. We had what you call a trifurcated trial where the trial went on over like a year and a half period. But in segments, so first we tried liability and we established in the civil context the concept of command responsibility. Okay, so at the Nuremberg trials, that's in the criminal context and at the Tokyo trials after World War II, those trials against the German head officers and the Japanese head officers were based on whether or not they would have criminal liability under command responsibility. So in other words, if they weren't actually there killing people at the massacre themselves or if they weren't actually present at Auschwitz, were they still responsible if they were giving the orders? Right. And they were responsible for the troops. And so this was in the first time in the civil context. So this was not a criminal case at all. Your cases were all civil cases. Yes. Very different in terms of ultimate, right, right, in a civil case. In a civil case, we were seeking money damages for our clients in a criminal, yeah. Or, I mean, in the Tokyo cases and the Nuremberg cases, a lot of people got the death penalty, yeah. Okay, so let's fast forward a little bit because here we're talking about 1980s now, right? Yes. So over the course of the period, I went to, I know, the Supreme Court? So, okay, we did the trifecrited trial. We got a $2 billion verdict. So that was actually in the 90s. So we are moving. Okay, okay, $2 billion. Now that's a very big judgment. Yes, at the time it was the biggest judgment in the United States. That was a class action. Yeah. And that was a big deal then. It was a big deal. Yeah. So then we proceeded to try to collect on the judgment and we pursued the house that the Marcosis lived in up in Makiki Heights and we did get a settlement. It was in the name of the Tantokos who were their cronies and the Marcosis were experts at hiding their wealth because as you can see today, they continue to be fabulously wealthy and their son Bong Bong ran for vice president of the Philippines. Their daughter, Aimee, became governor of Ilocos Norte and now she just got elected senator and Imelda herself got elected to office. But in the Philippines, well, the same is true here. You wanna run for national office like that. You really need a lot of money. You need a lot of money. Judgments then that came down came against, not the three of them personally, was it against? So who was the actual defendant? Was it the? Okay, the defendant was the estate of Ferdinand Marcos. Well, initially Ferdinand Marcos, but then when he died, it was against the estate. But the personal representatives of the estate became the son Bong Bong and the wife, Imelda. And so we tried so many different ways to get information from them about where are the assets and so that we could go collect on the assets and they would never provide us with any information. And so a contempt judgment ran against them in federal court for all the many years in which they wouldn't provide any information and the judge gave them many chances to disclose. But then in the end, we reduced the fine for failure to disclose any information about their assets, the judgment and we have a $350 million judgment against the two of them, which has gone up on appeal to the Ninth Circuit and the Ninth Circuit of held their judgment. So you still have the $2 billion judgment against the estate. And in addition you have $350 million against them individually, the two state trustees? Well, they're representatives, yeah. And they moved back to the Philippines after over none Marcos passed away. Right. I see, what year was that? Oh, I can't remember what year they went back, but they've been, you know, the Marcos is constantly, you know, deny anything about what happened. You know, they've been very successful in running for office. Sure. So tell us a little bit about the chase for finding some of the money. I know you have found some all over the world. Okay, so we did collect on the Makiki Heights house. We sold the Mercedes, the bulletproof Mercedes that Marcos drove around in when he lived in Hawaii at public auction and it was bought by the owner of the Imperial Palace in Las Vegas, who has a, I was afraid we wouldn't sell it because I would like, you know, it's kind of black memorabilia, but I guess there are people who are into it and that guy had Hitler's, you know, VW bunk too, so. The dictator's cars. Yeah, the dictator's cars. So he had it on display full of shoes, so if you went and you could guess the right number of shoes, you could, well, they weren't really hard shoes, but you could get a free spin at the roulette wheel, I guess. So I know you found some money in Switzerland. We did. We had money in Switzerland, $650 million, and we litigated in Switzerland over that money. You know, the law in Switzerland really protects the banking industry and the bankers, and so it's a crime in Switzerland to divulge any banking information. But we did pursue that money. We actually had a mediation in Hong Kong with Bong Bong and the Philippine government and ourselves over the division of those assets, and we did arrive at an agreement. Our clients were supposed to receive $150 million, and the President and the Philippines agreed, but the PCGG, which is the Presidential Commission and the good government disagreed. Anyways, it was fighting in the Philippines over it, and so the deal fell apart. So in these cases, did Bong Bong and Imelda, did they show up actually in these court proceedings? Were they represented by counsel? Of course by counsel, but did they actually attend the hearings, too? Well, they attended the mediation in Hong Kong. I didn't want the mediation in the United States, but they attended there. And generally, they've had lawyers here in Hawaii for all the federal cases. There was a state case against them, too, by some other attorneys, and they had sent a lawyer for that. We've deposed Imelda many times, and we deposed Bong Bong as well, and they've shown up for the depositions. And I know you found some artwork, too, right? Okay, so the first major recovery was in Texas. I'm sorry if you don't mind, but well, we've got to get there. We're going to go to break in a few seconds, so if you can tell us in a few seconds. Okay, so these assets were in the name of Compos, who was also a crony of Marcos, and there was incredible big spread in Texas, but some of the land included petroleum. So we pursued that case when up on appeal as well, and then finally we settled with Compos for $10 million. Okay, great. Well, on that note, we're going to go to a short break. When we come back from the break, we're going to talk about the actual amounts that you've been able to distribute to the victims of torture from Marcos. So we'll be right back. This is Carol Monli on Life in the Law with my special guest, Sherri Berter. Hi, I'm Rusty Komori, host of Beyond the Lines on Think Tech Hawaii. My show is based on my book, also titled Beyond the Lines, and it's about creating a superior culture of excellence, leadership, and finding greatness. I interview guests who are successful in business, sports, and life, which is sure to inspire you in finding your greatness. Join me every Monday as we go Beyond the Lines at 11 a.m., aloha. Aloha, I'm Dave Stevens, host of the Cyber Underground. This is where we discuss everything that relates to computers that's gonna scare you out of your mind. So come join us every week here on thinktechawai.com, 1 p.m. on Friday afternoons, and then you can go see all our episodes on YouTube. Just look up the Cyber Underground on YouTube. All our shows will show up, and please follow us. We're always giving you current, relevant information to protect you. Keepin' you safe, aloha. Welcome back, this is Carol Monli on Life in the Law with my special guest, Sherri Berter. And we're talking about the compensation to victims from the Marcos dictatorship and his years of torturing Filipino citizens. So thank you, Sherri. So we talked the first half about the case and how it got to this point over since 1986 and the class action and the chase for the money. So exactly, you said you had a judgment for $3 billion, but how much have you been able to actually find and collect? Okay, well the judgment was for $2 billion. That's okay, that was... $1 billion, $2 billion. Yeah, it's close enough. We've actually collected approximately $40 million. So first we collected the house up at Makiki Heights, a million dollars from that. Sold the Mercedes, a public auction. We collected some money from a Picasso that had been sold by one of the main auction houses in New York. We also collected 10 million from compost for the properties in Texas. Then we found that a Monet painting, a Monet water lilies had been sold in New York City by Vilma Bautista, the former secretary for Imelda Marcos. And I guess she was such a good secretary that Imelda gave her a painting which she then turned around and sold 35 years later for $34 million. So she must have been super exceptional secretary. So that you had a total of, you have a pool then of $40 million that you can distribute among. How many people are in the class? How many victims have you identified? There's approximately 7,500 people who have opted into the class. So that's kind of a class action, federal rule complication opt-in. But you had to sign up to be a member of our class. And of course these were victims of abuse. They had somehow been able to prove that they had been tortured in some way. They had to fill out an affidavit claiming, explaining their claims. And at the trial, we had a statistician describe how many people we would need to actually interview and talk to and have their testimony considered during the trial in order to have a statistically significant sample and what the plus or minus error would be. Because obviously there would be no way. A lot of our clients are very poor. There would be no way we could have tried the case for 7,500 people. I mean we wouldn't take it individually. Yeah. But what happens, it's been so long. I'm sure some of them have passed away. So is their states can step into their shoes as victims? Well, yes, absolutely. Of course, the case to begin with is for torture. Well, those victims can still be alive. But for those victims who were summarily executed, they call it salvaged. And those victims who are disappeared, those people weren't available to even file a claim. Okay, so they don't get any of the proceeds? No, they do, their relatives can file claims. Okay, all right. So now you've collected 40 million and you've already distributed some money, you said in the past? Yes, so this, I was just returned a couple of weeks ago and from the Philippines the distribution, that was our third distribution. First we distributed in 2013, 2010. That was the money from the settlement in Texas, the money from McKeeke Heights, the Mercedes, the Picasso. So we did our first distribution then. That was $1,000 each. To about 7,000 people? About, yes. And then we did a second distribution in 2013, and that was from the settlement we had. We sued the hedge fund manager who lived in Switzerland and who had bought the water lilies. A Monet painting for $34 million. But in our opinion, where's the providence for that painting and why did a Monet only cost $34 million? I mean, for Monet that's not very much. So we had funds from our settlement with him and then the most recent one, the most recent settlement which was for $14 million was due to, there were other, turns out, other paintings and rugs. And insurance policies and cash. And other things in this warehouse in where the Monet had been kept. Sort of, huh? So you turn that into cash and then that's what's been making the news this last couple of weeks. And I believe in the national news is that your distribution. So can we show some pictures? We've got some slides of Sherry and her team's recent trip. So this first picture is some coastline and some ships, some boats. Tell us about where we are in the Philippines. Okay, we're in Samar, western Samar, which is in Leyte Province. So that's where Imelda is actually from but from a different part of the province. I mean, I was heartbroken at how poor the people are. I mean, you can see how they're living. That's beachfront property in Samar. And then they go out in these fish, these boats to go fishing every day but you can see they don't have a motor. So they're going out, working all day long. That's their living, right? Is to fish, yet they don't have motors. So the money that we've been able to give them will enable them to buy a motor. So that'll make a big difference in their lives. I also took the picture because I'm very involved in trying to work on stopping plastic pollution. So here I am in the remote part of the Philippines and there's plastic lying on the beach. Is that you picking up plastic? No, no, that's not me picking up plastic. But yeah, so I was very upset about that too. Right, and so our next slide is a street scene. You know, maybe this is something we should consider here in Honolulu getting around on scooters instead of everybody driving cars but the reason they're doing that of course is they can't afford anything else. But this is, I would say 90% of the transportation around Samar is in these jeepneys. You see the scooter. With a little attachment, right? I mean they can put, you know, they can stop people in there. I even saw somewhere people were sitting on the roof and they're getting around. So there's enough money for somebody to buy a jeepney too. Right. So maybe an Uber or a driver. So this is because you chose this community to distribute checks because? We have different locations where we distribute checks. We pick them based on, you know, the number of clients in a vicinity. And otherwise we do two distributions of Manila. So, you know, everybody can come there. But a lot of these people can't afford to travel all the way to Manila. But in Samar, oh my God, the stories that I heard when I was there, I just break your heart. You know, some people, they came and the military or the constabulary and they took two of their sons. You know, 14, 16 years old, never to be seen again. Oh. If you can imagine. And this was in the 80s and the 70s and 80s. This was in the 80s. 80s, my goodness. Now we have another couple of slides. One is, this is a group of people waiting. And what are they waiting for? This is for a kid. So, you know, we had to make sure that everybody who, you know, came to climb a check was, in fact, the person they said they were and that they matched our database, that they had the proper documentation. If they're coming as heirs, as opposed to the victim themselves, then we wanted to know like, what did the rest of the family say? Was this the designated person to pick up the check? So, they're going through a whole process of picking up. Oh, validation. And so in the earlier distributions, we had taken pictures of people that came in to claim checks. So, we could also compare the pictures. Identify. Yeah. But, you know, the people, it's just, you know, I felt like, you know, the people are so poor, those with the wealth own everything. So, these people are living in the middle of a huge forest, but the wealthy own all the land. So, they can't even go in the forest and cut down a tree to build a house. Because they're very uneducated. Some of our clients can't sign their name. Not only can they not read, they can't sign their own name. So, a lot of the special power of attorneys were by some print. Oh, my God. Okay. Our next picture, our next slide. This is Sherry with a group of people and who are we looking at? Okay, so there's me on the far right, I guess I'm wearing the same shirt. And pearls, too. Yeah, and pearls. I do have more clothes, but. Anyways, so I was wearing that, and then the person on the opposite side for me, Claire, she was our translator. So, this part of the Philippines, not only do most people sort of speak, at least Tagalog, but a lot of people, there's an, you know, an indigenous language, and she's actually from this part of the Philippines. She's very well educated as a school teacher and retired now, and so she works for the Commission on Human Rights, which is in the Philippines. And we coordinated a lot with them. And then the woman in the middle is the claimant and her two, you know, granddaughters. And she is a victim. And she's a victim, yeah. Okay, we have two more slides. So let's get to the next one. Ah, this is you and shaking hands with a recipient. I'm shaking hands with a claimant, so this is victim. And you can see he came with his granddaughter. You know, that was so impressive. I would ask people, what are you gonna do with the money? If it was, especially if it was a victim themselves. Right. And they pretty much, either they were going to pay for their grandchild's education, or they were gonna fix the house, which they were living with all their relatives. So yeah, the people were, I was very moved. Of course. Meeting the people. And our last, our very last picture is your team. Yeah, there's the team. And so the guy opposite me, the far left standing, that's Bob Swift, that's my co-counsel. Then you can see Claire in the front again. Our translator. Yeah, and then on the left, that woman is a lawyer in the Philippines and she is one of the people heading up the commission on human rights office in Samar. You can see me over there in the green. And the woman in the matching green, Zina, she was in valuable help. She was in the commission for human rights office in Manila. Okay, great. Well, we just have a few more seconds left. So what exactly is the next step? Well, there'll be another distribution soon. Or have you given out all the 40 million that you've collected so far? We've given out all the funds that we've collected. We're in the process of finishing that giving out. But we have another case in New York, over $40 million. And that case even went all the way to the US Supreme Court. But we're still litigating over that. So we're hoping and we intend to have more distribution. Great, and on that note, we look forward to hearing from you again next time there is another distribution and haven't you come back to Think Tech to tell us more about this very important case and the opportunity that you have to at least give back to some of these people, some of the money that Lisa may deserve. So thank you so much, Sherry Broder. Sherry Broder has been my guest today on Think Tech Hawaii, Life in the Law. And we've been talking about compensation to victims from the Marcos regime. So we'll see you next time. Aloha.