MANILA, Philippines – President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. named retired Court of Appeals (CA) justice Melchor Sadang as the new chairperson of the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG), the agency tasked to recover his family’s ill-gotten wealth, Malacañang announced on Monday, April 22.

Sadang replaces lawyer John Agbayani, the last Duterte administration appointee in the PCGG.

He is the fifth person placed by Marcos in the PCGG, after commissioners Marco Bautista, Angelo Vergel de Dios, Rogelio Quevedo, and Elihu Ybañez.

Sadang retired from the appellate court in August 2017. In February 2023, he joined a five-man panel tasked to screen hundreds of police who submitted courtesy resignations as part of the internal cleansing project under the Marcos administration.

The PCGG was formed shortly after the 1986 EDSA People Power Revolution ousted Marcos’ father, dictator Ferdinand Marcos, and forced his family into exile in Hawaii.

The agency, attached to the Department of Justice, is mandated to recover the wealth stolen by the Marcos family and the patriarch’s cronies from government coffers during his 21-year rule.

The government has already recovered P174 billion in ill-gotten wealth, but is going after P125 billion more.

There have been calls to abolish the PCGG, especially during the administration of Marcos Jr.’s predecessor Rodrigo Duterte, but those proposals languished in Congress.

There are refiled bills in the House of Representatives seeking to get rid of the PCGG under the current administration, but these proposals have not been taken up at the committee level.

The Marcos administration has given the agency a combined budget of P326 million in the past two years. – Rappler.com