A federal judge in Honolulu this morning advanced a landmark human rights case, paving the way for thousands of torture and murder victims to split $7.5 million in damages. It means victims of former Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos’ corrupt regime will finally see compensation after a quarter-century-long legal battle.

“It’s been an incredibly long arduous path,” one of the plaintiffs’ attorneys, Honolulu-based Sherry Broder, told Civil Beat. “I never thought it would take this long, ever.”

Many of the 7,526 victims were killed under Marcos’ rule, or have died in the decades since, and money — $1,000 apiece — will go to surviving family members. Attorneys expect to distribute the funds by mid-March.

“This is a lot less than what we had hoped for, and what the victims really deserved,” Broder said. “But I think it is precedent-setting. It’s the first step to make a substantial collection of money where there’s been human rights abuses. It’s like we finally broke through the glass ceiling of collection in human rights cases.”

Most of the victims are in the Philippines, with dozens in the United States and Canada. One man collecting money is the son of Mariano Pimentel, a torture survivor who fled to Hawaii after Philippine soldiers tried to kill him.

“They broke his arms, broke his legs, then buried him alive in a sugarcane field,” lead attorney Bob Swift said. “He only survived because some local children who were hiding saw him, and dug him out. He died penniless in New Jersey.”

Philadelphia-based Swift in 1986 initiated the litigation, which has since spanned three continents. The lawsuit represents the first ever class-action suit filed for human rights violations, he said. Getting $1,000 to each member of the class-action lawsuit is mostly “symbolic,” Swift said, but that the money may make a real difference to the individuals who he said are anxiously awaiting compensation.

“Most of our class members are poor or very poor,” Swift said. “They live in a Third-World country.”

Despite a 1995 judgement that awarded $2 billion to the plaintiffs in this case, lawyers have until now been unable to get any money to the victims.

Philippine courts have objected to giving Marcos’ recovered assets to human rights victims. Because much of the money was originally stolen from government coffers, Philippine officials argue it should go back into the hands of the government. Even when a former Philippine president agreed to get $150 million to the victims, the Philippine judiciary intervened, saying he didn’t have the authority to broker such a deal.

“We’ve been fought by well-financed opponents,” Swift said. “We’ve had formidable opposition from three governments, including the United States.”

The funds for victims in this case come from a $10 million settlement over thousands of acres of land in Texas connected to the Marcos estate.

“We were looking to buy the properties, and we could never find ownership, so I started researching the ownership,” said Alan Meeker, a Texas property owner. “The tale unfolded right in front of me, just laid itself open, and I realized what was going on.”

Meeker said Marcos’ widow, Imelda Marcos, confirmed to him that a close associate of her husband’s bought the land on the Marcoses’ behalf. The former dictator was infamous for using dummy companies to invest the estimated billions of dollars he stole from the Philippine treasury.

“There was a definite method to the acquisitions,” Meeker said. “They would find second-tier and third-tier cities — which Fort Worth, San Antonio and Galviston were and are — and these properties were bought in a ring around the cities, such that in 20 years, growth would (occur) and those properties would have a lot of value.”

Officials in the Philippines aren’t going after the $10 million from Texas because they already reached a settlement with the deed holder that prohibits them from doing so.

U.S. District Judge Manuel Real acknowledged the “significant hurdles of recovery” of funds that attorneys have faced for the past 15 years, and commended them for their “skillful” and “diligent” prosecution efforts.

“This has been a very tough and long journey,” Real said during the federal hearing Thursday morning. “It has taken, I think, a lot out of the people involved.”

Swift said he will be able to begin the distribution process in mid-February. Most of the remainder of the $10 million settlement will go to attorneys — who have, for a quarter-century self-financed their efforts on behalf of the victims — and to Meeker, who is getting a $300,000 “finders fee” for his role in uncovering the Marcos connection to the Texas properties.

“I’m estimating that it will take four weeks, and it will require going to the Philippines to do the distribution,” Swift said. “The idea is to get the money out there as soon as possible, and in the hands of the right people.”

Because Marcos lived in Hawaii after he was ousted in 1986, U.S. judges had the authority to hear the case against him. Federal law allows human rights lawsuits to be filed against foreigners in the United States. Marcos died in Honolulu in 1989.

Swift, Broder and other attorneys are still working to secure more money for the victims. They’re in the process of fighting for roughly $70 million in assets in New York City and Singapore. Ultimately, attorneys hope to convince the Philippine government to coordinate efforts to get the money to victims.

“We feel that it’s still really important,” Broder said. “Human rights abuses go on all over the world. Many times, it’s like in this case, (and) the person in power who is abusing his own citizens is making himself rich and his cronies rich in the process. At least in the civil arena, it’s an opportunity to take away some of the fruits of human rights abuses.”