The Philippine Supreme Court yesterday overturned a corruption conviction against Imelda Marcos, the mother of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., more than three decades after the initial charges were filed.

In November 2018, the Sandiganbayan, the Philippines’ special anti-corruption court, convicted the former first lady, now 97, of seven counts of graft and sentenced her to sentenced her six to 11 years imprisonment for each charge. It also barred her from holding political office for life.

In a decision dated June 10 but made public yesterday, the 1st Division of the Supreme Court overturned the Sandiganbayan’s ruling, Rappler reported. In a 50-page ruling, Associate Justice Rodil Zalameda said that the prosecution had failed to prove her guilt “beyond reasonable doubt” and said that the key testimony and documentary evidence used against her were “inadmissible and lacked sufficient probative weight.”

The cases stemmed from allegations that Marcos and her late husband, deposed President Ferdinand Marcos Sr., used a network of Swiss foundations to hold and transfer at least $200 million abroad during her 1975-1986 term as Manila governor.

The Supreme Court decision did not dispute that the transactions had taken place, but ruled that the prosecution failed to meet the evidentiary requirements necessary to sustain criminal convictions.

In its 2018 ruling, the Sandiganbayan claimed that Imelda Marcos had “a direct or indirect financial interest” in the Swiss foundations and had “participated in the management of the same.” It attempted to substantiate this using documents retrieved from Swiss banks that, according to Rappler, were “authenticated in accordance with Swiss legal procedure.”

In his ruling, however, Zalamenda argued that the Swiss documents “were not properly authenticated” and that the prosecution “was not able to present any credible witness who could have attested to the genuineness and due execution of the documents.” As a result, prosecutors failed adequately to demonstrate that the Marcos-linked foundations in Switzerland were businesses as required by Section 3(h) the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act.

As a result, Zalamenda said that he had no choice but to overturn the convictions.

The case is just one of many against Imelda Marcos stretching back to her husband’s years in office. Ferdinand E. Marcos was first elected in late 1965, but placed the Philippines under martial law in 1972, after which thousands of opponents were jailed, killed, or “disappeared.” During these years, Marcos was accused of amassing more than $10 billion that the Presidential Commission on Good Government has since spent decades trying to recover, and Imelda become an international byword for corrupt extravagance. She amassed a collection of shoes so large that they are now housed in a purpose-built museum in Metro Manila.

In February 1986, a campaign of mass public demonstrations brought down the “conjugal dictatorship” of the Marcoses and they fled into exile in the United States, where Ferdinand died in 1989. Two years later, Imelda Marcos was allowed to return to the Philippines, but continues to face criminal and civil charges dating back to her husband’s years in power. The charges overturned by the Supreme Court in June were first announced in December 1991, shortly after Imelda’s return to the Philippines.

In practice, however, these charges have been little more than a legal headache for the Marcos family. Far from facing accountability for widespread corruption and human rights violations, the Marcos family has since the early 1990s been allowed to rebuild its power and influence, first in its home province of Ilocos Norte and then on a national level. This process that culminated in Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s conquest of the presidency in 2022.

Given this backdrop, and the extremely technical nature of the Supreme Court’s ruling, it is hard to see the acquittal as anything less than a setback for accountability in the Philippines and a proof that if one has enough wealth and prominence, it is possible to evade punishment for virtually anything.