Arroyo asserts her country's claim to cash Marcos stole

A US court cannot stop the transfer to the Philippine government of US$683 million that was deposited in Swiss banks by late dictator Ferdinand Marcos, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo said yesterday.

"Foreign courts cannot overturn our own Supreme Court," Arroyo said, invoking the principle of sovereignty.

Arroyo's follows a US judge's warning that banks could face contempt charges if they release the funds to the Philippines.

The US judge's move contradicts a Philippine Supreme Court decision in July to transfer the money to the government, saying the Marcos family failed to prove that they had amassed the wealth legally.

In a court order Tuesday, Hawaii District Court Judge Manuel Real said banks would be violating a freeze order on the transfer of any Marcos assets that his court issued after the dictator was toppled in 1986.

Real an adviser who monitors compliance of court orders informed him that some of the funds would soon be moved from Singapore, where they had been invested by state-run Philippine National Bank, to the Philippines.

Switzerland transferred the bulk of the Marcos assets from Swiss bank accounts into an escrow account at the Philippine National Bank in 1998.

It was not immediately clear why the US judge invoked the Sept. 2 order.

The Marcos estate was found liable for torture, summary executions and disappearances in a class-action lawsuit filed by 9,539 people in the Hawaii court. The plaintiffs were awarded about US$2 billion in compensation in 1995, but no money has been paid.

Marcos in exile in Honolulu in 1989 without admitting any wrongdoing.