U.S. Holds Off Giving Manila Marcos Papers

WASHINGTON — The Reagan Administration, citing legal and technical reasons, on Monday broke its own deadline and delayed giving frustrated Philippine officials copies of documents seized from former President Ferdinand E. Marcos.

At the same time, The Times was told that a complete set of the controversial documents, seized from Marcos when he fled to exile in Hawaii, was given last Friday to a federal grand jury in Alexandria, Va., that is investigating U.S.-financed military equipment purchases by the Marcos regime. According to Administration sources, the documents were provided in response to a grand jury subpoena.

Studied Page by Page

State Department spokesman Charles Redman said that the 1,500 papers--which reportedly detail vast investments allegedly made with money looted during Marcos’ 20 years of rule--were being studied by the Customs Service page by page and “conceivably” could be released to Philippine officials overnight.

The delay prompted investigators from the new government of President Corazon Aquino to plead for a partial release of those papers that have been reviewed, but Redman said that such a request “would make no difference” and probably would not be granted.

It was not clear late Monday why the Customs Service review of the papers was taking so long. Redman said that officials were removing from the papers “private” documents unrelated to Marcos’ business dealings.

The delay, coming on the heels of a promise Friday to turn over the documents Monday afternoon, left representatives of Aquino’s Commission on Good Government puzzled.

“We don’t know what the problem is. It’s possible that overnight we’ll get a partial turnover of the documents. If not, we wait,” commission representative Severina Ramirez said.

The sudden decision to postpone releasing the Marcos papers raised the possibility that Congress would issue its own subpoena today for the documents. Rep. Stephen J. Solarz (D-N.Y.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on East Asia and the Pacific, has pledged to subpoena the papers in a meeting this morning if copies have not been given to Aquino officials by then.

Solarz’s panel is conducting its own investigation into Marcos’ reported diversion of U.S. aid and Philippine government funds into private U.S. real estate investments.

Until Monday night, the three-way struggle over the papers among lawyers for the Aquino government, Marcos and the Administration had seemed all but settled.

Broader Restraint Refused

The rapid release of the documents seemed assured Monday afternoon when attorneys for two Marcos relatives were turned down by the Court of International Trade in their bid to win a broader prohibition against the release of the documents and to force the Customs Service to return the papers to Marcos.

Judge Dominick DiCarlo ruled that the two, who sued the Customs Service last week to prevent the transfer, did not have standing to sue on the former leader’s behalf. The two had signed Customs declaration documents when Marcos arrived in the United States.

A federal court in Hawaii has temporarily barred the release of the papers, except in response to subpoenas, treaties, international law and other unnamed legal processes. But Justice Department lawyers had stated Friday in court filings that the Administration would invoke the “treaties” loophole to give the documents to the Philippine commission at 5 p.m. Monday.

In explaining why the Administration broke that deadline, State Department spokesmen said that unresolved legal issues were clouding the papers’ release. “We’re ready to go soon as the Justice Department gives us the green light,” one spokesman said late Monday.

‘Legal Green Light’

However, that explanation was disputed by Justice Department spokesman Terry Eastland, who said there were “no legal reasons why our government cannot provide copies (of the documents) to the Aquino government.

“There’s a legal green light, and now it’s simply a matter of mechanics,” Eastland said.

The State Department’s Redman later agreed that there were “no lawyering differences” over the release and indicated that the documents would be provided to the Philippines government soon.

In Hawaii, attorneys for Marcos and his relatives filed documents Monday in two related lawsuits accusing the Justice Department of running “roughshod” over the Constitution by seeking to release the ex-president’s private papers.

Treaty May Be Lacking

In one filing, attorneys for Marcos asked a federal district judge to cite the government for contempt of court for its “attempt” to release the documents to the Aquino government.

A second line of argument contended that the effort violated the court’s temporary ban on releasing the papers, saying that no valid treaty between the United States and the Philippines allows such a release under the current court order.

The Justice Department’s “desire to put the documents in the hands of the government of the Philippines,” the lawyers wrote, “is second only to the desire of the government of the Philippines to pursue them.”

The lawyers accused the U.S. government of violating Marcos’ property rights and of engaging in “unilateral and unfair conduct” by proposing to release the papers without his consent.