After 20 years of legal struggle, the PCGG (Philippine Commission on Good Government), is throwing in the towel and wants to do an "amicable" compromise with the Marcoses. The latter has been accused of plundering the nation's wealth estimated at a whooping US$5 to US$ 10 billion.

Aside from the 500 ill-gotten wealth cases, the compromise agreement will have to mean the erasure of the criminal charges lodged against the Marcoses.

We state a categorical, emphatic "No" - in disagreement to the current direction of compromise pursued by PCGG Camilo Sabio and arrogant PCGG Commissioner Ricardo Abcede whose name sounds like an unfinished alphabet. For five good reasons.

First, no amount of money can buy the value of one human life. Hundreds of lives have been lost by the brutality of the Martial Law regime of which the Marcoses were the chief architects. Let it not be lost that this is the reason why murder convictions do not have bail because that would monetize and dehumanize the sanctity of human life. What about hundreds of lives?

A Supreme Court precedent signed by the current Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban is recorded on December 9, 1997 against the plea of PCGG then chair Magtanggol Gunigundo (we wonder sino'ng tinatanggol niya?) for a compromise agreement with the Marcoses stating that criminal cases cannot be subject to compromise.

Two, this would encourage other government officials to "steal now, pay later," a plan that protects official theft with the protective mantel of a future legal armor with the Marcos Deal as a convenient legal precedent. Third, it blinds our eyes to the difference between right and wrong, since the justification is that 20 years is too long to monetize the alleged ill-gotten wealth. Theft a century ago is still theft today -- which means owning up what is not yours. What has 20 years of unsuccessful legal battles got to do with the sense of morality?

Fourth, it propagates the theory that it is alright to "steal big and steal plenty" because one can always buy up the judicial system and hire smart lawyers to delay cases while a government clerk goes to jail for stealing P30,000. Then use the long delay in justice system to justify the compromise agreement?

Fifth, a compromise agreement allows the suspects to cover their entire liability (civil and criminal) with just a portion of their ill-gotten wealth, making the Filipinos fools twice over.

Therefore, the silly act of Commissioner Abcede of inviting the main protagonist, former First Lady Imelda Marcos, to his 59th birthday in his new Makati condominium recently was in absolute poor taste and invites questions. Having lost his moral alphabet, the flamboyant commissioner says his "amicable" settlement based on the Latin word "amicus" (friend) is meant to make the compromise a "friendly" one.

PCGG Chair Camilo Sabio sings a duet with Mr. Alphabet by saying that the Marcos Compromise Deal will allow us to "put it all behind us" and "unite our people." How we can put to rest the Guinness World record holders of plunder behind us and how a compromise agreement will "unite a nation" put to penury and having suffered lost lives and property, escapes even our most fertile imagination at the moment.

Some other entity should replace the inutile PCGG which has apparently produced many "commissioners" instead of doing good governance of assets. Its record of recovering wealth is atrocious and the handsome perks and salaries of PCGG officers and directors in sequestered banks and corporations had added to the government budget deficit through losses of government-owned corporations.

After 20 years of shameful performance, it justifies "The Big One" by toying with the idea of a series of compromises with the Marcoses and the cronies. Meantime, we Filipinos have allowed ourselves to be taken for a ride by the alternate asinine claims of the Marcoses for far too long.

One day, Imeldific cries she is so poor she had to borrow money from rich philanthropists like Doris Duke. The next day, the Marcoses claim that a compromise deal with them will allow the country to pay its foreign debt with the Marcos wealth.

Imelda Marcos had always smugly claimed when confronted with the plundered wealth issue in the past that "some people are smarter than others." When asked how much their wealth was, Madame Butterfly quipped something like the answer of the billionaire silver dealers (Huns): He who knows how much he is worth, ain't worth that much.

The Marcoses and their cronies and the PCGG officers had lived life to the hilt for the last 20 years without any conviction of any crime committed against the Filipino race. They probably figured these (Filipino) suckers for two decades wont be bright enough today to figure what we are really up to. So let's have a Compromise Deal.

That's really the biggest insult to an already large injury. Do we just stand and watch, ladies and gentlemen?

Do we honor now as our new heroes Sabio and Acebede as the nation's new Batman and Robin to fight crime in the proverbial Gotham City? Alas and alack!