What we didn't see: ABC News anchor shares what went behind the scenes during hard-hitting Marcos interview
ABC News anchor Sarah Ferguson claimed that President Ferdinand Bongbong Marcos Jr.'s staff attempted to stop their sit-down interview when she started asking him about his family's ill-gotten wealth.
In an Instagram post by the Australian news outlet, the 7.30 presenter gave a look at what went down when she asked him about their family's corruption, including a "blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment with his minders behind the scenes."
Ferguson narrated how the President's team tried to get the producer to end the interview when Ferguson brought up his father, the late Ferdinand Marcos, in their conversation.
"What is not visible, except for a few, literally, like a few little shadows on the screen is that from the moment I mentioned his father, the minders, first of all, start to move. They start to talk amongst themselves. Then they start talking to the producer, trying to get her to shut the interview down," she recalled.
"And then, as the questions go on, they start moving closer towards Marcos and I," the journalist added.
"They are standing just behind his chair and I want to push on to ask him what his responsibility is, what his relationship is to what his father did and his acceptance of that and what it means to him as president. But I'm doing that in this extraordinary space where the temperature in the room has, depending on how you see it, has either gone right up high or way down low," she continued.
In the same clip, Ferguson revealed that while Marcos was there to talk about the Philippines' relationship with China, she knew that their interview was going to be divided into two parts: one about the former, and another on his family's ill-gotten wealth, which she described as the "sticky part" of it.
Ferguson, in the said chat published on March 4, contronted Marcos about their family's corruption, which seemingly left him flustered.
When Marcos let out a laugh, Ferguson said, "May I just ask you why that's funny?"
"No. I'm thinking that that maintains, that idea maintains because I take exception to many many of the assertions that have been made," Marcos replied.
Defending his family, Marcos said his family has signed quit claims, "where any money that you find is yours."
"We went, we were taken to Hawaii. Everything. Everything was taken from us. We had nothing left," he added.
Marcos went on to dismiss earlier conclusions on their unexplained wealth as "propaganda."
"I think that having seen the facts, as they have been slowly revealed, further true investigation, not propaganda, but actual true investigation, the court cases and investigations by all kinds of NGOs, different agencies, that has changed and people can see that it was propaganda," he said.
"There was a time when the issue was Marcos. That's not the case anymore and that's why I think the best proof of that is my election," he added.
The Supreme Court in 2023 affirmed the anti-graft court Sandiganbayan's 2019 decision to junk the P1.05 billion ill-gotten wealth case against the Marcoses due to insufficient evidence.
The Presidential Commission on Good Government filed a civil forfeiture case (Civil Case No. 0008) in 1987 in a bid to recover from Imelda Marcos, Ferdinand E. Marcos, and their alleged cronies P1.052 billion—P609.27 million of which are shares of stocks and P443.05 million are real properties.
Sandiganbayan rejected the "numerous pieces of evidence" submitted by the PCGG, noting they weren't disclosed during the discovery process. Others were also excluded for violating the so-called best evidence rule, i.e., the usage of original documents and not photocopies.