[3] During the Second World War, Cuenca withdrew from high school and worked some jobs, one of which was at the General Engineering Depot for the US Army in Malolos, Bulacan.
[3][4] The company maintained its favored treatment until the early 1980s, for the benefit of Cuenca and Marcos, both of whom allegedly "divided and funneled commissions" and kickbacks into their own pockets.
[dubious – discuss] [4] According to Cuenca, it was in also in 1967 when he started joining Marcos to play golf, along with Robert "Bobby" Benedicto, the latter's classmate in UP Law School, and the former's close friend since the 1950s.
[4] By the end of 1968, the first phase of the Manila North Luzon Expressway (NLEX) was open to the public, the road measuring 28 kilometers towards Guiginto Bulacan from Balintawak.
[3] These contracts also allowed the CDCP to gain back their expenditures and/or capital [3][4] by collecting toll fees for a decade, "starting from 1968 or until it accumulated $6.1 million, whichever came first.
"[4] The CDCP, however, requested that the duration be extended, as well the amount increased, justifying that their cost of operations had also inflated, and that they were held responsible "not only to maintain the highways but also to improve and 'expand' them.
Presidential Decrees 1112 and 1113 in 1977 also imposed an increase in toll rates, forcing the public to pay steep fees that would primarily benefit the CDCP's and Cuenca's pockets.
The Marcos administration retaliated by releasing a presidential decree that closed service roads for buses, which then had no choice but to pass through the expressways.
Another project of the CDCP was the Light Rail Transit (LRT), this time partly financed by a $40 million loan from the Belgian government.
[4] On July 24, 1987, the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) filed a case whose respondents included Cuenca and his son Roberto, Imelda Marcos, Roberto Ongpin, former Philippine National Bank president Panfilo Domingo, Development Bank of the Philippines officer Don Ferry, and eleven others,[13] claiming that the respondents had engaged in “schemes, devices or stratagems” to acquire ill-gotten wealth.
[14] On August 5, 2010, the Sandiganbayan dismissed the case after throwing out 60 of the 100 documentary exhibits presented by the PCGG at the trial because they were photocopies, rather than originals of the documents.
[14] The 27-page decision penned by Sandiganbayan Associate Justice Alex Quiroz,[14] asserted that “since the due execution and authenticity of said photocopied documents had not been proved, the same were inadmissible in evidence.
Unfortunately, the limited and discretionary judicial review allowed under Rule 45 does not envision a re-evaluation of the sufficiency of the evidence upon which respondent court's action was predicated.
The book reveals the corruption and the corrosive tensions among the Marcos’ Palace elite that contributed to its downfall during the last three years of the dictatorship.