MANILA — President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. on Tuesday said his family's P203-billion unpaid estate taxes should be "opened," even as the Supreme Court has already issued a final ruling decades ago.

Marcos Jr. and his mother, Imelda, are co-administrators of the estate left by the Marcos patriarch who died in Hawaii on Sept. 29, 1989.

On December 2021, the Bureau of Internal Revenue sent a demand letter to the Marcoses to pay their estate tax dues which has ballooned from about P23 billion in 1997 to P203 billion.

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Marcos, however, said he wants the issue to be finally "resolved," claiming that they "were never allowed to argue" their side.

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"We are actually encouraging that this be finally resolved because I don't want to make a legal opinion to which I am not qualified," Marcos told Toni Gonzaga in a television interview that aired on ALLTV channel on Tuesday.

"We were never allowed to argue because when this case came out, we were all in the US. So when it was the time for us to answer, we had no chance to answer because we were nakakulong (detained) in Hickam Air Force Base in Hawaii," he added.

"Open the case and let us argue it... Iisa-isahin namin talaga 'yung sinasabi nilang property. Kasi hindi maliwanag ang pag-aari ng mga property na sinasabi," Marcos said.

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Marcos' former spokesman and now Executive Secretary Vic Rodriguez, claimed in April that the tax case was still being litigated.

A Supreme Court ruling showed that the Marcoses' estate tax assessment of P23 billion became "final and executory" in March 1999.

• Palace says BIR told to address Marcos family's unpaid P203-B estate taxes
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