Claim: Former president and dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos opened his Swiss bank accounts in 1954 and 1963 before he became president.
Rating: FALSE
Why we fact-checked this: The YouTube video posted on August 25 by a channel with 436,000 subscribers has over 25,529 views as of writing.
What the video says: The video features a clip of former broadcaster and pro-Marcos vlogger Rita Gadi where she says, “Ang nakita nila, ‘yung binuksan ni Marcos noong 1954 at 1963. Ang ibig sabihin nito mayroong dalawang account diyan sa pangalan ni William Saunders, pero sa ilalim ng pangalan niya Ferdinand Marcos, ‘yung isang account sa pangalan ni Jane Ryan, sa ilalim noon ay Imelda Romualdez Marcos. Bakit ganoon? Sapagkat sa Switzerland ganyan sila nagpapasok ng pera. Kailan ito pinasok? Hindi pa presidente si Marcos, abogado pa lang siya at congressman pa lang siya at bagong kasal pa lang.”
(What they saw are Marcos accounts made in 1954 and 1963. This means that they have two accounts under William Saunders, but under that name is the name of Ferdinand Marcos, and Jane Ryan, but under that name is the name of Imelda Romualdez Marcos. Why is that? Because that’s how you put money in Swiss bank accounts. When did they deposit the money? When Marcos was not yet president, when he was still a lawyer and a congressman, and when they were still newlyweds.)
Gadi said this proves that Marcos was extremely wealthy even before being elected president.
The facts: A 2003 Supreme Court decision shows that Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos opened their first Swiss bank accounts with Schweizeresche Kreditanstalt or SKA, also known as Swiss Credit Bank, in 1968, during Marcos’ third year as president. He was elected in November 1965.
“On March 20, 1968, after his second year in the presidency, Marcos opened bank accounts with SKA using an alias or pseudonym WILLIAM SAUNDERS, apparently to hide his true identity. The next day, March 21, 1968, his First Lady, Mrs. Imelda Marcos also opened her own bank accounts with the same bank using an American-sounding alias, JANE RYAN,” the decision said.
Rita Gadi: According to stories published by Rappler, VERA Files, and FactRakers, the former broadcaster is linked to spreading disinformation about the Marcoses, particularly regarding their supposed gold deposits and false claims about the dismissal of ill-gotten wealth cases.
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Resurfacing claim: The claim about the Marcoses’ Swiss bank account has been recurring since April 28, 2020, when Gadi first discussed it in The Rita Gadi Hour, a segment uploaded on the YouTube channel of Katipunan ng Demokratikong Pilipino.
In 2021, Rappler fact-checked the same claim after a clip from Gadi’s original video was uploaded by Facebook user Mark Angelo Noroña Gone on October 16 that year.
Gadi’s video resurfaced in 2023 after Facebook page Marcos Gold provided a link to the former broadcaster’s original YouTube video in a post published on April 10, 2023. The Facebook page used Gadi’s video to prove the existence of supposed Swiss gold deposit certificates named after Marcos and former US president Ronald Reagan. Rappler debunked this claim. – Lorenz Pasion/Rappler.com
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