The Philippines' Golden Buddha Controversy

Rogelio Roxas with Buddha (Image source)

After the Second World War, treasure hunting was the rage in the Philippines. People were looking for Japanese buried treasure. In 1971, one man got lucky.

A Filipino locksmith named Rogelio Roxas had been given a map by a Japanese soldier during the 1960s. After years of digging, he and his small team found an elaborate tunnel complex hidden behind a hospital in the mountain city of Baguio.

After days of careful excavation fearing the possibility of booby traps, they found a passageway full of the skeletons of Japanese soldiers. They were the unfortunate men entombed by General Yamashita and Prince Takeda when they sealed the vaults in 1945.

Investigating further, the crew found a large treasure stash. A one ton solid gold Buddha and many crates of solid gold bars. More gold than they could possibly handle in their dreams.

Their stupid plan to take and sell the Buddha and use the money to hire trucks and equipment to get the rest of the treasure was a terrible mistake. News got out.

The Philippines’ greedy dictator Ferdinand Marcos sent miltary goons to Roxas’ house to ransack the place and steal the Buddha.

Roxas foolishly went to the press and the courts to complain about the theft. Phillippine opposition leaders sensed a chance to topple Marcos and seized upon Roxas’ allegations.

A senate inquiry into the golden Buddha affair was held, where much evidence about the theft and Marcos’ corruption was presented to the court. President Marcos got mad and vowed revenge.

The next year, an opposition rally protesting Marcos’ rule got bombed, killing 10 people. Marcos himself was responsible but he blamed the communists and declared martial law.

Marcos had his opponents rounded up and jailed. He tightened his ruthless grip on the country.

All the while, the president would have his goons capture and torture Roxas and his men to try and locate the entrance to the tunnels.

The torture sessions had turned Roxas into a physical wreck. Somehow though, he resisted and did not talk. But one of his team gave in and revealed the treasures' location.

Over the next year, Marcos' goons would extract an estimated 10,000 gold bars worth tens of billions of dollars from the tunnels.

Imelda Marcos with the statue, believed to be fake or another one from the excavated treasures (Image source)

The story has a weird footnote. In 1996, after both Marcos and Roxas were dead, a U.S. court in Hawaii awarded Roxas’ heirs a judgment of a staggering $43 billion dollars against the Marcoses.

To date, not a dollar of it has been paid.

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Sources: http://unsolved.com/archives/ferdinand-marcos%E2%80%99-gold-buddha
https://theunredacted.com/the-legend-of-golden-lily-yamashitas-gold/

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