''Forgiveness for 30 percent or $171 million of the escrow account. That means we will not attempt to collect anymore. That's it, that's called settlement and the judgement was fully satisfied whatever the amount we agreed on,'' American lawyer Robert Swift told the Inquirer in an interview.

The exclusive interview took place on the eve of Swift's meeting with President Estrada.

In that meeting, the President assured the rights violation victims they would get the compensation by Christmas time. But Malacañang warned yesterday that negotiations regarding the awarding of compensation for the victims would be delayed further if the communist-led National Democratic Front refused to resume peace talks within the framework of the Constitution.

Palace officials said the government couldn't continue negotiations if the NDF insisted on being conferred a belligerency status which would put the rebels on equal footing with the government.

''It's very clear that we cannot agree that just by the mere act of sitting down with them, we are conferring belligerency status on the NDF.

That is not acceptable. We cannot have two governments in the Philippines,'' Zamora said in a radio interview.

President Estrada had approved the government panel's recommendation to suspend peace negotiations after the NDF allegedly claimed that it had achieved belligerency status when the President earlier signed the agreement on the respect for human rights and international humanitarian law.

Zamora said the stalled peace talks would mean the implementation of the compensation agreement for human rights victims would be withheld indefinitely. ''This means that because we are not holding the peace talks, we cannot continue talking about the compensation. That is part of the package,'' Zamora said.

The executive secretary noted that the compensation was part of the agreement earlier signed between the government and the NDF. Zamora said the government remained open to peace talks.

''We're just waiting. If they say they are accepting that it is the government of the Philippines they are dealing with, no problem. We'll be back within a day,'' Zamora said.

Swift said if the $171 million were distributed equally, the 9,539 victims would each get P770,835.

Swift assured former first lady Imelda Marcos that the rights violation victims belonging to either the Samahan ng mga Ex-detainees Laban sa Detensyon at para sa Amnestiya and Claimants 1081 would stop bothering the Marcoses regarding money claims once the judgment was ''fully satisfied.''

''Whatever the amount that we agreed on, that's it. We stop there,'' he said. ''The judgment is fully satisfied. No more recovery efforts.''

Asked if he would accept the compensation even if, as Mrs. Marcos had put it, given ''out of compassion,'' Swift said, ''I don't really care what basis she's giving it (the money).''

Told that some of the Marcos victims wanted the Marcoses prosecuted, convicted and jailed, Swift said the class suit could not achieve that. ''The class suit is purely a civil case. There was no guilty finding. In a civil case, a jury finds liability. So the Marcoses are liable or not liable. In this case, they were found liable and they quantified the liability at about $2.5 billion,'' Swift explained. ''The human rights victims want justice. That's fine,'' he said.

''First of all, Ferdinand Marcos is dead. Mrs. Marcos and her children had criminal charges brought against them arising out of mostly corruption and ill-gotten wealth. Those are criminal in nature,'' Swift said. ''The human rights victims have no control over criminal charges as only the government could prosecute the Marcoses criminally.''

In fact, he pointed out, the government was not prosecuting the Marcoses for any human rights abuses.

''Not one of the cases filed by the government had something to do with human rights abuses,'' he stressed. ''We haven't filed any criminal charges. It's a civil case, not a criminal case.'' He added: ''It's not for me, as a civil litigator, to opine on whether she (Mrs. Marcos) should be convicted. It's best left to Philippine courts.''

Swift cited as example the decision of the United States government to bring criminal charges against the Marcoses in New York. ''Ferdinand Marcos was not well enough to proceed to trial. Eventually, Mrs. Marcos was acquitted,'' he said. ''But we had nothing to do with that whatsoever. Ours is purely a civil case.''

Swift said the government had also no option but to settle with the Marcoses because the government could not obtain a judgement from court.

''Mind you, the government could not obtain judgement. They never will, the government needs the consent of Mrs. Marcos to release the amount,'' Swift said. ''The Marcoses are very clever. They know how to make the money, spend it and keep it.''

He said the cash-strapped government needed the money to remedy the budget deficit and the human rights victims needed the money to ''get on with their lives.''

''Therefore, what we need here is a settlement and that would resolve the problem,'' Swift said.

Swift's co-counsel Rod Domingo, for his part, echoed Swift's position. ''What is important here is there is already a judgement, and the judgement states the violations,'' Domingo said. ''So nobody can dispute that. That's history already, that's final already. It's now in history books.''

Swift said what was important was that the human rights victims achieved an ''unprecedented, historic, landmark judgement.''

''This judgement would remind the people in the world that indeed the Marcoses committed human rights abuses against the Filipinos,'' Swift said. ''And the Filipinos will not allow that to happen again.''

Swift said through the class suit, the world had been informed that somewhere in Mindanao in 1974, military troops attacked a village of 500 people, rounded up the teenage girls and boys, separated them and in three days, their bodies were found floating down the river.

''You have a village there with a whole generation that does not exist. That news never got to the Western world because Marcos was heavily censuring all the information,'' Swift said.

He called attention to another case, that of an 8-year-old boy who was used by the military to lead them to the rebels' lair. ''The military brought the boy, shot him and just dumped the body somewhere. They also got rid of his body so the family never had a body to bury,'' he said.

He said the 9,539 rights abuse victims each had a story to tell. ''The world knows all this, knows the Marcoses were liable, and that's more important,'' Swift said.

By Christine Herrera and Juliet-Labog Javellana