"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 apologise for," Imee Marcos-Manotoc said.

These allegations remain allegations."

Succeeding governments have accused Marcos, who was ousted in 1986, of enriching himself during a 20-year rule and have attempted to recover billions of dollars.

This includes US$570 million (HK$4.4 billion) in Swiss banks that has been moved to an escrow account in the Philippines.

A Hawaii court found Marcos liable for human rights violations and awarded US$2 billion to 9,539 Filipinos.

Ms Marcos-Manotoc, the eldest of Marcos' children and a member of the House of Representatives, said: "I'm not an apologist for my father's regime. I'm not saying that I understand everything, but give us, his children, a chance."

She said Marcos' three children hope to reach an agreement on ending "this Marcos issue" by sharing her father's fabled wealth.

The children have asked the Supreme Court to implement a 1993 agreement for a 75-25 share-out of the wealth in favour of the government.

Ms Marcos-Manotoc said too that her family was "not fixated" on an amount and was "really open to any kind of arrangement."

But, she said, any settlement "should have no determination of guilt". "If you think about it that way, even if it's just 1 per cent, that's still 1 per cent guilt. It's really not the way we think." - AP