The Sandiganbayan found Imelda Marcos, wife of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos, guilty of seven counts of graft and corruption in a ruling issued last November 9. Despite this, she was not arrested and was even allowed to post a bail bond of P150,000.

The decision by the Sandiganbayan is a ruling over the ten cases filed against the Marcoses on December 1991. The cases involve the Marcos couple’s hidden wealth deposited in their private bank accounts in Switzerland and Imelda’s abuse of power.

Marcos was sentenced to six years and a month up to eleven years in prison for each case she was found guilty of or a total of 42 and seven months up to 77 years. The ruling also prohibits her from running for any position in the reactionary government.

The Party welcomed the ruling against Marcos but said that it already came “too late.” This addresses the demand of the Filipino people to penalize the Marcoses over their crimes against the nation. The case was, however, queued for 30 years in the reactionary court, allowing Imelda Marcos to evade imprisonment. Now, at the age of 89, she is left with only a few years to serve her sentence, if she is indeed to be imprisoned.

In previous years, all reactionary regimes failed to address the demand of the Filipino for swift justice and even allowed the Marcoses to rehabilitate themselves.

Various organizations and the dictatorial regime’s victims promptly mounted successive protest actions to condemn the disinterestedness of the Duterte regime to convict Marcos. Carrying placards with the call “Imelda, Iselda!” (“Imprison Imelda!”), members and supporters of the Campaign Against the Return of the Marcoses and Martial Law staged a protest last November 12 in front of the Sandiganbayan.

On November 14, similar protest actions were mounted by martial law victims from North Luzon and by student activists in UP Dilman, University of Sto. Tomas, Far Eastern University and De La Salle University.

a Earlier, on November 9, the UP Diliman community lighted a bonfire in celebration of the issuance of the ruling.