The warning was issued yesterday by Executive Secretary Ronaldo Zamora, who said this scenario was one of the reasons the Estrada administration was seeking an out-of-court settlement with the Marcos heirs.

"It's so easy to say 'why give the Marcoses a share of the money when much of it was ill-gotten.' But what we should remember if we do not come into an agreement, who would benefit from the money?" Zamora said in an interview with a radio station.

"It may be the banks in Switzerland . . . or what Ms (Imelda) Marcos calls the unfaithful cronies," he said.

Zamora said a public apology from the Marcos family to the Filipino people might be included in a compromise deal.

"That can really be included but that is up to the negotiators to determine. Of course, the Marcoses up to now, they refuse to say they committed anything wrong," Zamora said.

He conceded that if the Marcoses agreed to issue a public apology, that would constitute admission of the charges that they plundered the nation's wealth and committed atrocities during martial law.

Rep. Imee Marcos, the eldest daughter of the late dictator, said her family saw no need to apologize for her father's alleged misdeeds.

"It is easy for me to say sorry, but up to now I haven't seen anything and nothing has been proven that we need to apologize for," she said in an interview on dzMM radio.

"These allegations remain allegations," she added. Marcos was ousted in a "people power" revolt in February 1986. He and his family were driven into exile in Hawaii where he died three years later.

Succeeding governments have accused Marcos of enriching himself during his 20-year administration and have attempted to recover billions of dollars of alleged ill-gotten wealth.

The amount includes $580 million in Swiss banks which has been moved to an escrow account in a Philippine bank.

The government claims the Marcos wealth far exceeds his legitimate income during his years as a lawmaker and later as president.

A Hawaii district court found Marcos liable for human rights violations and awarded $2 billion to 9,539 Filipinos who won a class action suit against the Marcos estate.

"I am not an apologist for my father's regime," Marcos said.

The Marcos children have asked the Supreme Court to implement a 1993 agreement for a 75-25 percent sharing of the wealth in favor of the government. But the high court rejected their petition.

Marcos added that her family was "not fixated" on the amount and was "really open to any kind of arrangement" with the government of Mr. Estrada.

But she said any settlement "should have no determination of guilt."

Malacañang has asked the Marcos family to appoint a spokesperson who would negotiate with President Estrada or his appointed negotiators for a settlement of the ill-gotten wealth.

Zamora earlier said the human rights claimants would get the first crack at the money.

He clarified reports that the 75-25 sharing, reached during the term of President Fidel Ramos, would be the "starting point" of negotiations.

"We have not said that we are prepared to live with that. It can be 80-20 or even higher," he said.

But Makati Rep. Joker Arroyo said the Marcos heirs were not likely to give up the family's ill-gotten fortune and might only agree to share the $580 million in Swiss deposits.

"Over and above that, they are free to enjoy all the other ill-gotten assets abroad that they refuse to disclose to the government. Thus, the Marcoses' insistence of a global settlement," he said.

By Juliet L. Javellana, with reports from Rocky Nazareno and AP