This was according to American lawyer Robert Swift, the lead counsel in the class suit filed by the victims of the Marcos regime, who issued the challenge to President Benigno Aquino III and Sen. Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr.

Marcos is the son of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos, who was accused of being behind the torture, arrests, disappearances and deaths of thousands of people during his rule.

Aquino is the son of former President Corazon Aquino and former Sen. Benigno Aquino Jr., who played key roles in toppling Marcos from power.

Swift said Marcos, who is now a senator, should take steps to ensure compensation for the victims.

“Today, I call on Senator Marcos to negotiate a final settlement. If he is to be an effective leader in his own country, he must first settle the claims of his father,” Swift said during the ceremonies for the turnover of $1,000 checks to some of the victims.

He also called on Mr. Aquino to stop the government from challenging the Marcos victims’ suit.

Swift said the President should “negotiate a global settlement with us.”

“It’s unnecessary and unsavory for the Philippine government to oppose its most oppressed and abused citizens,” he said.

Swift noted that the government recently filed a new motion in Singapore deriding the claims of the human rights victims and asking the court to dismiss their claims.

“Twenty-five years is long enough, Mr. President. It’s time to reach a final settlement,” he said.

Swift later said he would be available in case Mr. Aquino wanted to talk.

Swift also recalled the challenges he had faced in pursuing the class suit by the human rights victims.

He said he used a little known, 200-year-old US law to pursue the victims’ claims before the US courts.

He came to Manila a month after the 1986 EDSA People Power Revolution, armed with the idea that the victims could run after the dictator in the United States, where Marcos had fled.

Swift got in touch with lawyer Jose Mari Velez, who was instrumental in helping him pursue the case. Velez worked tirelessly and fearlessly, he recalled.

Swift also noted that the suit by the Marcos victims was the first ever filed on behalf of human rights victims anywhere in the United States or the world.

The Marcoses, he said, put up a “dogged defense,” and won the first round. Brought on appeal, the court ruled in the victims’ favor.

But Swift also said what made the case hard to pursue was that the Marcoses forced the victims and their counsel to provide a lot of evidence to prove their claims.

He hailed the contribution of Philippine lawyers to the case, even as he bewailed that the Philippine government, in recovering the Marcos assets, intervened in the victims’ case on the ground that it owned the Marcos assets as these were stolen from the government.

He also lamented that the Philippine courts refused to recognize the judgment made by the US courts in the case, prompting him to go to the United Nations Committee on Human Rights.

Leila Salaverria, Phil. Daily Inquirer