Lost, or Stolen!

Crime indeed does not pay, but the Philippine government really meant business when it made the thieves pay. Their crime: The systematical pilfering of priceless historical documents at the National Library, selling these to antique shops and collectors.

On May 29, a Manila Regional Trial Court judge will decide on the case, so says ABS-CBN Online. This will put to a close the 18-year saga of retrieving thousands of stolen Philippine historical documents and bringing the thieves to justice.

A sting operation in 1993 had led to the arrest of Rolando Bayhon, a researcher of National Historical Institute. He was caught with 42 historical documents in his possession. He was planning to sell these documents at P1,000 each to a Manila antique store but justice caught up with him. Seven hundred other documents were also recovered from that antique store.

Following Bayhon’s arrest, National Library director Adoracion Bolos made a public appeal for the voluntary return of other historical documents by anyone who might have unwittingly bought them, vowing not to press charges, so says ABS-CBN Online. This resulted to the retrieval of 8,183 documents, mostly classified papers relating to the Philippine Revolution. A UP professor returned more than 6,000. NBI probe also showed there was a network of “mediators” and interested buyers of antique documents, and as always, Bayhon’s hand was the one caught dipping in the cookie jar. Some documents he had sold in the range of P30,000 to P50,000. The man really made much money out of the pains and anguish of the Philippine Revolution!

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