Month: September 2022

Originally published by Vera Files on June 29, 2022.

Tomorrow, Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. becomes the 17th president of the Republic of the Philippines.

Many of the so-called Marcos loyalists are, of course, ecstatic. Two of them, businessperson Serafia “Cherry” Cobarrubias and broadcaster/writer Rita Gadi, shared their joy—and pro-Marcos propaganda—on the livestreamed program of the latter, The Rita Gadi Hour, a few weeks after the May 9 elections.

Cobarrubias, who reportedly helped fund the December 1989 coup attempt against Corazon Aquino, insisted that Bongbong’s win was a miracle; that “the voice of God is the voice of the people”; and that members of the clergy who spoke against Bongbong should be ashamed of themselves and ask for forgiveness. Gadi, Marcos regime propagandist, insisted that there is no evidence that Marcos Sr.’s wealth came from the state’s coffers. Near the end of the livestream, Cobarrubias claimed that the former dictator, on his deathbed, said that only 3% of his wealth would be kept for his family and the rest of his assets worldwide “should go to the Filipino people.”

It seems safe to say, at least based on social media, that some who voted for Bongbong did so based on these claims, including the narrative that the family’s wealth would be used for the benefit of the entire country should a Marcos reoccupy Malacañang. Many loyalists believe that promise that was often repeated by Bongbong’s mother, Imelda.

Documents, however, show that Marcos  Sr. himself never made such a pledge. At best, he set up the Ferdinand E. Marcos Foundation (FEMF) that did appear to serve a charitable purpose, in contrast to several other Marcos “foundations” that clearly functioned to help the family retain wealth that is far beyond what they could have legally earned. Ambiguous claims regarding FEMF’s funding sources and purpose became a basis for the Marcos family’s improbable vow to share their wealth.  Such distortion of the truth then mutated into the scams that further propagated the myth of bounty for loyalty to the Marcoses.

THE FERDINAND E. MARCOS FOUNDATION

In 1970, at the start of his second term as president, Marcos Sr. publicly announced that he was putting all of his wealth in a foundation bearing his name. In a statement,  the chief executive said he was motivated by “the strongest desire and the purest will to set the example of self-denial and self-sacrifice for all [his] people.” Records of the Security and Exchange Commission show that FEMF filed its articles of incorporation and by-laws on January 21, 1970, but in her book Marcos Martial Law: Never Again, author Raissa Robles said that the foundation’ registration had already been revoked by 2015.

Marcos Sr.’s announcement made headlines even in foreign media, quoting his statement. A wire story published in the Miami Herald mentioned that in 1968, “Marcos was listed for the first time among the Philippines’ top 100 income taxpayers” with the equivalent of over $160,000 “mostly from legal fees earned before he became president in 1965” even though his annual salary” was only $15,000.  A 2003 decision written by former chief justice Renato Corona noted that Marcos Sr.’s income tax return just before becoming president “did not show any receivables from client at all” and there were “no documents showing any withholding tax certificates.”

A Manila Bulletin article discussed in the Philippine Weekly Economic Review noted that Marcos Sr.’s “properties, savings and investments [were to] go to the people through a foundation which will be used to advance education, science, technology and the arts,” but “did not specify” which assets or if these included conjugal properties with Imelda. In his 1970 statement and  other speeches, Marcos only said that  “[provisions] will be made for [his] children, so that they shall be assured of satisfactory education and be prepared to meet their lifetime duties and endeavors.”

The first couple poured millions of  dollars into their children’s education, money that courts have ruled could not have been legally obtained. Expenditures included tuition, allowances, housing, and donations.  Neither of the two Marcos children, Imee and Bongbong, who studied in universities abroad obtained scholarships. Both returned home without a degree.

After Marcos was deposed in 1986, it became clear that besides the money spent on their children’s education, properties purchased abroad, deposits made in U.S. banks as early as 1968, funds in Swiss bank accounts determined to be illegally obtained, among others, were not among the assets of the FEMF.  To reiterate, Marcos never stated outright that his countrymen would have a redeemable share in the wealth he purportedly donated to the Foundation.

The FEMF had its headquarters in the Goldenberg Mansion on 838 Gen Solano Street, San Miguel, Manila which was christened with the name  “Ang Maharlika.” In a 1979 speech, Marcos Sr. said the mansion was “bought by the Marcos Foundation and converted into a guest house and then donated to the government,” but the property was listed in  the 1979 Philippine Yearbook as the site of the Marcos Foundation Museum.

The Sandiganbayan declared in a partial summary judgment on December 19, 2019 that paintings found at the Goldenberg mansion were ill-gotten and were forfeited in favor of the government. It noted that the Marcos heirs admitted owning the paintings in the mansion and other locations that were valued at $23 million, more than the legitimate income of the Marcoses before they fled the country. A particular set of paintings by American artist Grandma Moses displayed at the Goldenberg Mansion was, according to a New York Times article, collectively purchased for more than $600,000, about twice the Court-declared legal earnings of  Marcos Sr. and his wife in their last term in office.

A list of science foundations certified by the National Science Development board as of January 30, 1972 included the FEMF, which was described as a funder of “research studies on behavioral and social sciences and the humanities; scholarships; professorial chairs; publication and dissemination of results of research studies.”  Perhaps its  best known project was the  UP Los Baños’s National Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology for which FEMF committed P20 million for the purchase of laboratory furniture.  A Supreme Court decision in  2004, however, pointed out that FEMF stopped paying the furniture supplier in early 1985 and its almost P1 million collectibles remained unpaid even after the fall of Marcos.

It appears that money from the Foundation was used for military research as well, although this is difficult to prove. An article published in April 1972 in the Far Eastern Economic Review mentioned that funding for the infamous Filipino-made missiles, one of which was nicknamed Bongbong, came “from the Marcos Foundation which the president said he would set up as his contribution to social amelioration.” It is unclear why no further progress was made in the local missile program beyond the first half of 1972.

Numerous government and non-state sources attest to the existence of FEMF-funded scholarships, but the number of scholars who benefitted from them appear to have been few. A Ministry of Education and Culture memorandum from April 1982 states that the Pangulo Scholarship Program was constituted by the Kabataang Barangay Foundation, Inc., and the FEMF in Oct. 1981. For the school year 1982-83, the program had 150 slots distributed in 13 regions.  Pangulo scholars had to take one of five courses in six universities with “a monthly living yearly allowance of P5,000, excluding tuition and book allowance. In the 1986-87 academic year, slots for the Pangulo Scholarship slots were unlimited but students had to be active members of the Kabataang Barangay.

The name “Marcos Foundation” were in the copyright pages of numerous books purportedly written by Marcos Sr., many of which were distributed free. Studies have provided evidence that these books were in fact produced by ghostwriters and that at times, the money spent to publish came from government offers, not the FEMF.  A statement of transactions in the files of the Presidential Commission on Good Government shows that the Foundation owed $31,120  to Prentice-Hall, Inc., publisher of “Marcos’s” book The Democratic Revolution in the Philippines,  as of December 31, 1974.

The Foundation also attempted to fund a professorial chair at Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. Based on the February 1977 Official Month in Review published in the Official Gazette, the proposal to set up the chair was submitted to Marcos by Nihal W. Goonewardene, director of the Asia Pacific teaching fellowship program of Fletcher School based in Manila.” As reported by the Harvard Crimson, the FEMF had donated $500,000 to Tufts by January 1981 to establish  the Ferdinand E. Marcos Chair for East Asian and Pacific Studies, and partly finance the construction of a school building. That same month, however,  Marcos canceled the funding without withdrawing what  had already been donated. Various explanations for this were given, but it was reported that numerous scholars declined the offer to fill the chair.

Lastly, the Foundation is also on record as a donor to at least one hospital and one university other than UP. These are the Mariano Marcos Memorial Hospital and Medical Center and the Mariano Marcos State University both name after Marcos Sr.’s father in Batac, Ilocos Norte.

From these snippets, it is quite clear that the  Foundation was well endowed, but there was no indication that it had sufficient assets to make every Filipino wealthy or significantly address the country’s economic deficits; it certainly did not help in paying the country’s foreign debt. Moreover, the known assets of the Foundation were dwarfed by the billions of dollars in the Marcoses’ ill-gotten assets kept separate from what the FEMF managed.

FERDINAND MARCOS’S LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT 

Not long after the EDSA Revolution, the PCGG focused on Marcos assets that were stashed abroad, in foundations that had the Marcoses as beneficiaries, or those kept for Marcos by dummies, some of which were recovered via compromise agreements. Based on the various versions of his last will and testament from 1980 to 1988, Marcos Sr. never had any other specified heirs besides his wife and children.

A portion of Marcos Sr.’s will from March 1982 was shown to journalists by his family in November 2016 to show what their patriarch said about his funeral and burial arrangements.

The PCGG has the full version of the will in its files and among the appendices of the book Marcos Legacy Revisited: Raiders of the Lost Gold by Erick San Juan, published in 1998. The portion not shown to the media contained details of his wealth that Marcos Sr. bequeathed entirely to his wife and their three children and adopted daughter Aimee. The FEMF is mentioned only as an executor in case of his wife’s “default or incapacity.”  The will also contained this provision: “I hereby revoke any and all my other wills, codicils, or testamentary dispositions heretofore executed, signed, or published, or alleged to have been executed, signed, or published by me.”

If Marcos ever willed any of his assets to go to other people other than his only son and wife after his death prior to March 1982, he had effectively withdrawn it.

That revocation clause (a standard feature of wills) was retained in another version of his will, made a month later. This one too appears in San Juan’s book and kept in PCGG’s files. The most glaring alteration in this version is the removal of the Marcos Foundation as secondary executor and in its place, Bongbong was designated as executor along with Imelda.

A 1988 version of Marcos’s will has been published at least twice:  in the October 7, 1992 issue of the Manila Standard, which noted that the document had been “acknowledged” by Imelda, according to former senator Rene Saguisag; and in San Juan’s Raiders of the Lost Gold. Substantively,the will remained similar to its earlier incarnation, again naming  Bongbong and Imelda as co-executors. Bongbong’s name was dropped in 1982 and reinstated in 1988. The 1988 will, or a later version of it, appears to have been Marcos Sr.’s  last.

Ferdinand Sr. died on September 28, 1989. Despite the government’s attempts to disqualify them from performing their duties, the Supreme Court, in Republic v. Marcos II, affirmed that Bongbong and Imelda were the co-executors of Marcos Jr.’s will but this did not give either of them a say on what to do with the billions recovered by the PCGG.     

FALSE PROMISES AND COMPROMISES

Not long after her husband’s death, Imelda began saying that she would use all of her family’s  wealth for the benefit of the nation as supposedly intended by Marcos Sr.  She said it in 1990 after she was acquitted of violating the U. S. Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, mail fraud, and obstruction of justice and a year later, in a press conference on her return from exile.  Imelda said she had wanted to release some of their money to support “typhoon victims, for earthquake victims, for [those affected by the eruption of Mt.] Pinatubo” but that “was not allowed.”

There is no known evidence to support this.

By that time, over five years had passed since the Swiss government had frozen the Marcos bank accounts in Switzerland after an attempted withdrawal of $200 million in deposits in March 1986, when the Marcoses were already in exile.  When Imelda returned to the country, a settlement had been made in which the government would drop a civil racketeering case against the former first lady “in California and all other pending or future suits against her in U.S. courts in return for an estimated $8 million worth of Marcos property” in that country, the Washington Post had reported.

The settlement did not include the dropping of lawsuits filed by private individuals, some of which were successful.

By saying at that time that they needed permission to access funds for disaster relief, Imelda was practically stating that beyond what was discovered by various governments, the Marcoses had relatively little else. Indeed, even the P27 million in freshly minted bank notes that they “unintentionally exported” to Hawaii when they landed there in February 1986 were seized from them and partly returned to the Philippine government, already demonetized, in 1992.

Perhaps this was why she did not make the distribution of her family’s wealth a highlight in her 1992 presidential campaign. Her 15-point platform did not mention it, but some of her most important loyalists did it for her. Among them was writer/educator Reynaldo T. Fajardo, a founding member of the organizationFriends of Imelda Romualdez Marcos or FIRM, also known as FIRM-24K.

Fajardo wrote a number of pro-Marcos books in the late 1980s and the 1990s, including The Acquittal, Homecoming, and Inevitable Rise to the Presidency of Imelda Romualdez Marcos, published in 1991.  In his book, Fajardo claimed that Marcos Sr. “wanted to use [his] stupendous wealth [purportedly hundreds of billions worth of gold] to turn the Philippines into a self-reliant and truly sovereign nation that would gain the respect of the rest of the world.”  He added that in fact, Marcos Sr. “said that he was also sympathetic with the miserable plight of the other underdeveloped and developing countries” and “planned to help them, too.”

One can’t help but wonder why the former dictator did not do that when he was president.

Fajardo also said the “vast wealth that the late President  accumulated and conserved” was intended to be used “to accomplish his vision for the country,” and that Imelda would “use effectively” this wealth “left with her by the President.”

Imelda would later echo this as a campaign promise. An article published in March 1998 in the Manila Standard with the headline “Imelda Reveals more Secret Bank Accounts,” stated that the Marcos widow, then a presidential candidate, claimed that her family had over $800 million “in secret bank accounts abroad that she would give to the poor Filipinos if she wins the May presidential election.” That amount supposedly excluded funds that were previously identified as ill-gotten in Swiss bank accounts. Imelda said that even she was “not aware of the extent of [their] wealth,” further claiming that her husband’s money was a product of “diligence, hard work, foresight, entrepreneurship and God’s blessing.”

The Standard reported that Imelda showed the press a photocopy of a purported handwritten will of Marcos Sr. stating that “his worldly goods have been placed in the custody and for the disposition of the Marcos foundations [sic] dedicated to the welfare of the Filipino people.” Another article, published in Sol Jose Vanzi’s Philippine Headline News Online on April 15, 2004, dates this alleged “handwritten legacy” as being executed on April 9, 1973.

If true, then the wills Marcos executed in the 1980 leaving all of his wealth to members of his immediate family, superseded the 1973 one.

Still, Imelda insisted her husband wanted to leave all his wealth to the people. In December 1998, months after she withdrew from the presidential race to support the eventual winner, Joseph Estrada, Imelda testified during a senate hearing that she wanted the chamber’s help to “implement the last will and testament of the late President Marcos, to enlist assets in the hands of trustees, to implement the Marcos Humanitarian Foundation, so that we can help the country in our economic crisis and help the Filipino people in their agony and suffering.”

Imelda made the appeal after claiming in a series of articles published in the Philippine Daily Inquirer that her family “practically [owned] everything in the Philippines.”  During her 70th birthday a year later, before a cheering crowd in a church, she declared in Filipino that she was convinced Estrada would find a way to settle with the Marcoses and this would lead to the establishment of a Marcos Foundation to help the country.

In 2004, she and her children threw their support behind presidential candidate (and Estrada ally) Fernando Poe Jr., because, as per Imelda, “FPJ [will help implement] the last will of Ferdinand Marcos, which is to help the people even if he [Marcos] is already gone.” According to an April 2004 Philippine Daily Inquirer article, Imelda said “that if Poe won, the Marcoses would willingly give [their assets] to the government so he could use it for the people.”

Over time, Imelda’s claims became wilder becoming not only about distributing money, but also promising a stake for Filipinos in the fictitious deuterium deposits in the Philippine Deep.

These did not exactly jibe with statement made not only by her husband when  was still alive but also those made by Bongbong, especially when the family wanted to make compromise agreements with the  government. Before the Marcos patriarch died, according to various news accounts, the family, through alleged intermediaries, offered to give anywhere between $2.1 billion to $5 billion to the government so they could return to the Philippines. Former vice president Salvador Laurel maintained that the elder Marcos was willing to give 90% of his wealth which could have left the family $550 million.

But Marcos Sr. was a notoriously unreliable source regarding his wealth. In 1987, he was still outrightly denying that he had any Swiss bank accounts or hidden wealth. In the same year, in the infamous “Marcos Tapes” in which the exiled dictator was secretly recorded talking about a plan to invade the Philippines, Marcos Sr. mentioned that he had billions of U.S. dollars worth of gold, and that Bongbong knew where part of that hoard was. During a hearing on the Marcos tapes at  the Subcommittee on Asian and Pacific Affairs of the U.S. House of Representatives, Representative Jim Leach said that the Marcos gold, “while representing a monstrous theft, cannot possibly be of such monumental proportions.”

For his part, Bongbong has repeatedly asserted that his father made his money partly by trading in precious metals although this has never been judicially acknowledged in the Philippines. More importantly, Bongbong deviated from his mother’s claims by insisting that compromising or sharing their wealth with the government was not a means to fulfill some philanthropic final wish of his father but a way for their family to be rid of their remaining cases in one fell swoop.

A November 2, 1997 article published in the Filipino Express stated that Bongbong, then on hiatus from politics after failing to win a senate seat in 1995, wanted to compromise only to give his family immunity. That was the whole point, he stated; “Kaya namin ginagawa ito para malinis na ang lahat, mawala na ang kaso, maayos na ang hatian sa alleged Marcos assets.” He also insisted that there was no more hidden wealth beyond what had already been identified in the frozen Swiss bank accounts. If anyone could find more, it’s theirs, he effectively said.

An earlier settlement try in 1993 was junked by the Philippine Supreme Court for several reasons, including the impossibility of granting the Marcoses immunity (since they were the principal defendants in numerous cases and would not stand as  witness against other defendants) and the fact that then president, Fidel Ramos was not a signatory to the agreement between PCGG and the Marcoses.

By 1997, Ramos, with support from the majority of the senate, asked Congress for a law allowing him to enter into a compromise with the Marcoses following a proposal from Bongbong, according to an October 1997 South China Morning Post article.  While the senate, based on a Manila Standard article published that same month, was willing to do that or provide, in the words of the late senator Miriam Defensor Santiago, a (limited) special power of attorney, it did not happen.

Soon after Estrada became president, he reiterated his campaign trail declaration that he wanted to give executive clemency to Imelda, but as reported in a January 1999 Xinhua News Agency article, the family must have a united voice. Perhaps Estrada noted the disconnect between Imelda’s claims of unfathomable wealth for the people and Bongbong’s more pragmatic stance. He was mainly talking to Bongbong and no agreement was reached.

Bongbong made it seem that it was only through a compromise that the government could get its hands on the Swiss funds, but a condition for the transfer of the money was a final judgment of conviction on  the Marcoses. By the early 2000s, this  had not been met technically but  all that was really necessary for the transfer was the 2003 Supreme Court decision, written by Chief Justice Corona, declaring the wealth in excess of the Marcoses’ legitimate income as ill-gotten. By then, the funds had reached over $650 million.

THE BASIS OF LOYALIST LOYALTY?

While Bongbong’s ultimately unsuccessful attempts to reach a compromise with the government appealed to decision makers, especially those frustrated with a supposedly underperforming PCGG and the Marcoses’ legal maneuverings, it was Imelda’s more fantastic claims that drew many die-hard loyalists to the family’s side. FIRM 24-K would hold on to Imelda’s promise of wealth distribution even through the last decade, when their president, Artemio Lachica, claimed that the share of its members in the Marcos wealth would only be given once the Marcoses get what they are fighting for. Apparently, some FIRM 24-K’s  members were promised a million pesos for participating in the organization’s tree-planting program where they had to pay for the seedlings,  according to a 2022 article published in the Philippine Star after the elections.

There are other groups like FIRM 24-K. In a November 2017 Facebook post, popular pro-Marcos vlogger Maharlika said she was not connected to what she labeled a scammer group, Maharlika Marcos Loyalist, Inc., which, like FIRM 24-K, collected fees while promising to give money or wealth. Photo/video evidence show that this group, Inc. was among the organizers of Imelda’s ill-fated 90th birthday celebration in July 2019 at the Ynares Stadium in Pasig where hundreds suffered food poisoning.

Both groups are recognized by the Marcoses. One of FIRM 24-K’s Facebook pages uploaded two videos showing that they can legitimately claim to have pushed Bongbong to run for national office again in the 2010 elections where he won a seat in the Senate, and another one that had Imelda pledging a P1 million seed fund to its “Anima Foundation.”  Such Marcos-sanctioned groups have spun off into other organizations claiming to help give people a stake in the Marcos wealth but whose direct ties to the family, if any, are not readily apparent. An example is the scammer group Bullion Buyer Ltd., which organized an event in 2017 where thousands flocked to UP Los Baños to claim—unsuccessfully—a few thousand pesos allegedly from the Marcos’s coffers.

It is difficult to ascertain how many voted for Bongbong with the belief that he would pave the way for mass wealth distribution. Based on Google Trends, there was a spike in search interest on the late dictator’s last will and testament days after Bongbong’s win became a certainty. FIRM 24-K alone claims millions of members nationwide. The program at the UPLB event claimed that Bullion Buyer Ltd.  already had over 281,000 beneficiaries. And no matter how many times these are debunked, sometimes by the Marcoses themselves, claims that the family would give away either a share in their “Tallano gold” or help people monetize their claims to “deuterium deposits” under a Bongbong Marcos presidency remain popular.

But what if this does not happen?

In 2002, according to a November 10 Inquirer article, several long-time loyalists claimed that they were severing ties with the Marcos widow — and preparing a book that would show the “real Imelda”— after it was said that she had settled with the Cojuangcos on the ownership of the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. for a staggering P2 billion. Among these loyalists were surprisingly, Cobarrubias, and Gadi. Their gripe? Imelda was, as mentioned by a loyalist, “in a position and has the means to fulfill” her promise of “setting up a Marcos foundation to benefit the poor.”

Gadi was quoted by the Inquirer as saying that Imelda was “in a position to help her loyalists, but I see no sign on her part.” Things were so bad between Imelda and her former “groupies,” as a November 2002 Arab News article called them, that they started calling Imelda a liar, or “a master of acting and deception.” They were still angry at Imelda a year later, with no indication that the incredibly wealthy Antonio Vialogo, who funded Imelda’s 70th birthday bash in 1999, would throw another birthday party for the former first lady again.

But in the year before Bongbong became a senator, Imelda reconciled with Cobarrubias and company. All of them became the staunchest of Marcos supporters again, and their tell-all anti-Imelda book did not materialize. According to a Rappler report, Oscar Violago, Anthony’s father, contributed P15 million to Imee’s successful senate campaign in 2019. Cobarrubias, during her recent guesting in Gadi’s online program, happily talked about funding the production and publication of the pro-Marcos books of the Katarungan at Katotohanan (Truth and Justice) Foundation, Inc., such as Hubris: When States and Men Dare God – The Persecution of the Marcoses.

For some, money probably does help fuel loyalty to the Marcoses. Marcos “inheritance” or “biyaya/ayuda” scams persist to this day. Some are relatively unsophisticated, such as a recently debunked claim circulating online after the elections that Bongbong was giving aid in exchange for personal information. Others are utterly bizarre, such as at least two recent videos, with hundreds of thousands of views on YouTube alone, claiming that Marcos Sr. is still alive, and that the man himself, and not Bongbong, would bring prosperity to all.

Even Cobarrubias, in conversation with Gadi, said that the former president metaphorically rose from the dead (“bumangon tuloy si Ser”) and campaigned in the last election. Indeed faith, partly disinformation-driven, in a dead man who supposedly gave up his wealth for his people—all evidence to the contrary— is probably also difficult to shake off for many who had already invested so much in the Marcos cause. Millions, scammed or otherwise, are probably ecstatic about the Second Coming of Ferdinand Marcos –  Senior or Junior.

They helped put a Marcos back in Malacañang; will the Marcos heirs reward their faith?

Originally published by Vera Files on May 7, 2022.

If surveys on the fast-approaching elections hold, the Philippines will soon have a president who has difficulty discerning fact from pseudoscience — the way his mother also does.

On March 19, 2022, Martin Andanar, acting presidential spokesperson, asked Bongbong Marcos in an interview if he, like his mother, former first lady Imelda, “really believe[s] that there is deuterium in our country.”

This was his full reply:

Ah that, that’s not question, ep . . . people it’s been established that ah . . . especially, kasi ‘yung sa malalim, ah . . . nand’yan ‘yung Marianas Trench sa atin, nand’yan ‘yung sa . . . what—seven kilometers deep. Ah, that, that’s established that it, it belongs there—ah it belongs there—ah that it exists in those places. But it is something na, for, that, that, we will use for a hydrogen-based econ—ah energy economy. Ah . . . it will take time. Eh, for the future siguro p’wede nating tingnan nang mabuti ‘yan. Ito’y kasi ah . . . eh hydrogen is very clean, very green. Ah, ang ang ang ah . . . waste ng ng deuterium, pagka gumawa ka ng hydrogen, ginamit mo ‘yung hydrogen, ginamit mo ginawa mong fuel cell, ang lumalabas dyan, lang dyan is tubig. So walang, walang carbon ah . . . emissions ah . . . kaya’t malinis. But that’s for the future kasi it will require the same infrastructure that we now have for gasoline and for, ah . . . ano, for diesel, and for PNG, and LPG. All of these systems now took, what, over a hundred years to establish. Ah . . . kailangan magrere-adjust tayo. But I think because of the concerns with global warming, du’n ta . . . du’n talaga tayo papunta. At uhm . . . the time will come that we will start to shift to other alternative fuels, the greener fuels, and become a greener economy, we will have a greener system of energy. Nagsimula na, mula nung COP 26 na nagmeeting sa Edinburgh, na ang pinag—, binawasan ‘yung ah . . . pag ah . . . paggamit ng coal. Ang problema walang kapalit na renewable. Kaya tumaas ang presyo bigla. Kaya bumalik na naman ng kaunti dinagdagan na naman ng coal-fired, nga ga, ng kuryente na galing sa coal-fired at ah . . . kaya kailangan talaga natin babalansehin lahat ‘yan. That’s why deuterium is still very attractive ah . . . ah . . . attractive resource . . . ah para sa atin because hydrogen is, has been established, as a clean ah . . . as a clean alternative, a greener alternative to fossil fuels. So, yes, ah . . . ‘yung mother ko talaga malayo mag-ano ‘yan eh, malayo talaga mag-isip ‘yun, she’s very forward-thinking. So that’s, that was her thinking when she ah . . .  started to show an interest in the deuterium deposits that have been established around the Philippines.

Bongbong erred when he said that the Marianas Trench is seven kilometers deep (it’s 11.034), that COP 26 was held in Edinburgh (it was in Glasgow), or that the pursuit of a greener economy began with COP 26 (as quite clear in the name, it was the 26th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change), and there is no mistaking his admiration for his “very forward-thinking” mother.

The son’s admiration for Imelda’s supposed prescience seemed to equal the intensity of his belief in deuterium. While a senator from 2010 until 2016, Bongbong filed two bills: Senate Bill 2593 on November 15, 2010  and SB 408 on July 3, 2013. These were identical bills for a Hydrogen Research and Development Center. Both died at the committee level.

The bills failed in their primary objective but succeeded in putting into the Senate’s legislative record, through the explanatory notes, this particular claim regarding deuterium: “Hydrogen is being processed from deuterium which is heavy water or hydrogen water without oxygen. This is obtained from the deep trenches of the world and the world’s largest deposit of deuterium is in the Philippines.”

Bongbong, while running for vice president in 2016, referenced SB 2593 in a press release  to burnish his credentials as an advocate of alternative energy sources.

Mother and son’s conviction that the country has access to unparalleled deuterium deposits goes against peer-reviewed scientific research.  At least one public historian, scientists, and journalists, have used that research to cure those who suffer from what is called “deuterium delirium,” but debunking does not always work in this age of disinformation.

THE SCAM BEGINS

When the first claims on deuterium deposits in the Philippines appeared in local media after the 1986 EDSA Revolution, the naturally-occurring hydrogen isotope was touted to be the resource that would solve the country’s economic woes.

At the time, everyone was aware of the enormous debt that the Marcoses burdened the country with before they were deposed. In a series of online articles about the deuterium hoax, the late historian Bob Couttie found an article released in August 1987 by the Media Mindanao News Service.

The article featured a local “scientist,” Cesar Escosa, who believed the “Philippine Deep in Surigao [del] Norte holds the largest deposit of deuterium.” He said this could be mined to “pay all [the country’s] foreign debts,” allow overseas Filipino workers to come home to “higher paying jobs,” and provide the world with an inexhaustible source of fuel. Escosa supposedly claimed that Washington and then president Cory Aquino was discussing the “deuterium project” as early as March 1986.

Escosa’s claims have not been backed by any reliable source.

Before he was declared a nuisance candidate when he tried to run for senator in 2001, Escosa said he was an accountant.  He was also declared a nuisance when he filed his certificate of candidacy in the 1998 presidential race.

But there were other deuterium believers, notably in the House of Representatives. In August 1987, Rep. Mario S. Ty of Surigao filed House Resolution No. 98 requesting the “Departments of Environment and Natural Resources and Other Concerned Agencies of the Government to Conduct Feasibility Studies and Surveys to Determine the Presence of Deuterium Off the Coast of Surigao in Aid of Legislation.” In the same month, Glenda Ecleo of Dinagat filed HB 483 establishing the Philippine Deuterium Development Authority. Not to be outdone, Ty filed a similar bill.

Both died at the committee level.

In response to “numerous inquiries,” likely stemming from Escosa’s claims and these legislative filings, the Nonconventional Resources Division (NCRD) of what was then called the Bureau of Energy Development, Office of Energy Affairs (OEA), released a backgrounder entitled “Deuterium Explained” in the April-September 1987 issue of the NCRD newsletter Energy Alternatives.

In fairly accessible language, the NCRD affirmed that deuterium, “in combination with hydrogen, is already a recognized source of energy,” and that hydrogen was at the time “already being used as fuel for rockets and spacecrafts” and was “a feasible alternative to hydrocarbon (oil) fuel.”

But the NCRD cited a number of caveats: deuterium extraction can be done through electrolysis, but the process is expensive; and nuclear fusion, the process through which deuterium can become a “tremendous source of energy,” was (and still is) “very much in the research phase.”

The NCRD also revealed what scientists had determined after the discovery of deuterium in 1931: all water has deuterium.

“Deuterium exists in all types of water such as seawater, river water, ground water, rain and snow,” it said, adding that in water, “there is one deuterium atom for every 6,700 atoms of hydrogen.”

In NCRD’s view, deuterium production was not a bad venture—if very expensive and likely impractical—for the Philippine government to go into, but this should not be done on the belief that there is more deuterium in Philippine waters than anywhere else.

The NCRD made this more explicit in an article titled “OEA Paper Debunks Deuterium Myth” in the October-December 1988 issue of Energy Alternatives. Citing OEA Energy Research Laboratory chief Zalson Espino and Nonconventional Resources Division chief Conrado Huruela, it stated that “scientific facts make it impossible for deuterium deposits to be lodged in the Philippine Deep.”

The article further stated that breaking up deuterium oxide or “heavy water” to obtain deuterium gas “requires electric current [i.e., electrolysis] and cannot be initiated in water simply by high pressure [i.e., at the bottom of the Philippine Deep].”

“Even if, by some natural process, deuterium gas gets isolated from water, its natural tendency would be to rise and escape into the atmosphere [not, say, stay in the ocean depths] because it is much lighter than water,” it continued.

“The claim, therefore, that deuterium can be mined from the Philippine Deep and used to generate electricity is utterly fallacious and without basis,” the piece concluded.

“Oceanographic hallucinations.” That was how Roger Posadas, a PhD in physics and former dean of the College of Science at the University of the Philippines, characterized Escosa’s deuterium claims in a March 15, 1988 report in the Manila Standard. He called Escosa a “pseudo-scienfic swindler.”

As noted by Rappler in a January 19, 2021 fact check, all this lines up completely with peer-reviewed papers published well before Escosa started appearing in the news, such as “Deuterium Content as a Parameter of Water Mass in the Ocean” by Yoshio Horibe and Nobuko Ogura in 1968. Another one published in 2012, “Isotope Composition and Volume of Earth’s Early Oceans,” affirmed that hydrogen isotopes actually rise — not sink – in the ocean.

Despite all this —and the much-publicized debunking of an alleged breakthrough “cold fusion” experiment involving deuterium conducted by American chemists Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons in 1989 — the scam went on.

In 1989, Tarlac Rep. Herminio Aquino accused Escosa of defrauding some 10,000 applicants in a deuterium mining project. The congressman said that Escosa’s firm charged P5 “for application forms” and P10 for notarization when it had “already been established that there are no deuterium deposits in the Philippines.”

ENTER THE MARCOSES

There is no credible proof that the Marcoses were already attached to deuterium claims while the family patriarch was still president. In the last book attributed to him, A Trilogy on the Transformation of Philippine Society (1988), the dictator very briefly mentioned deuterium as a possible energy resource.   In the portion on planned programs, Marcos Sr. said “oil exploitation and other indigenous energy deposits like coal, uranium and deuterium shall also be looked into.”

The deuterium dream was still alive in the early 1990s.  A story in the textbook Growing Up Gracefully (Rex Book Store, 1991) partly used the deuterium hoax to illustrate the value of the country’s natural resources. It said that deuterium was “like diesel oil and is used for cooking, lighting, and for transportation.”

“With our big deposit of deuterium,” a character in the story said “the Philippines could be one of the richest countries in the world.”

But by the late 1990s, deuterium was no joke to Imelda. Before withdraing from the 1998 presidential derby, she talked about deuterium as a possible solution to the country’s economic troubles. It is unclear where Imelda picked up this advocacy, but Escosa’s discussion on deuterium in his continued public appearances may have contributed to her “education” on the topic.

According to Couttie, “the deuterium scam was firmly affixed to the Marcoses and Imelda promoted it heavily through amenable media people” by 2004 as Imelda often talked about this in interviews with both local and foreign media.

Over time, Imelda and her allies started to claim that she owned the deuterium deposits or the rights to them.

HYDROSPHERE RESOURCES FOR MOTHERING, INC. 

What can be ascertained is that on March 31, 2005, a firm named Hydrosphere Resources for Mothering, Inc. applied for an offshore exploration permit in Davao Oriental. The following day, it also filed an application for a permit for the “exploration and development of gold, copper and other base metal resources” in the town of Gen. Luna, Surigao del Norte.

The firm’s address was 204 Mariano Marcos Street corner P. Guevarra Street, San Juan, Metro Manila— the main residence of the former first family before Marcos Sr. became president. The two documents are on display at the Batac World Peace Center/Marcos Photo Gallery, a museum Imelda set up near the Marcos Presidential Center/Mausoleum.

Both applications were denied, but another one was filed by Hydrosphere on April 5, 2005.  This time  it was for an exploration permit for  “gold, copper, platinum, tungsten, etc.” in Guian, Eastern Samar.”  This too was rejected because of the company’s failure to submit by the May 22, 2013 deadline the minimum capital requirements for mining applicants.

In short, Hydrosphere does not currently have any valid mining exploration permits on any of  these sites along the Philippine Trench on the country’s Pacific coast.

A map of the Philippines adorns the “Twin Mansion” in Cabuyao, Laguna, one of the Marcos properties sequestered by the Presidential Commission on Good Government but is curiously still sometimes used by the family. Online pictures show that the map depicts the Philippines’s GOD — Gold, Oil, Deuterium, with the “D”  located the “Phil. Trench, Deepest Part of the World.” Similar imagery can be found in Imelda’s Batac World Peace Center.

In Imelda: Mothering and Her Poetic and Creative Ideas in a Troubled World (2012), which is in many ways a rehash of Imelda’s other book Circles of Life, the former first lady tells the author, Cecilio Arillo, that deuterium is “the strategic energy of the future” and that “some people are already calling the Philippines as ‘God:’ gold, oil and deuterium.”

In a 2013 with Norman Pearlstine of Bloomberg Businessweek, Imelda claimed that she spent “millions of dollars a year to maintain her exclusive right to extract water from [the Philippine Trench] in the hope that having an abundance of deuterium can speed the development of advanced nuclear fusion reactors.”

Imelda’s Statements of Assets, Liabilities, and Net Worth when she was a member of Congress from 2010 to 2019 does not show any such payments.

The former first lady likewise said she had known about the deuterium deposits as early as the 1970s when Edward Teller, known as the Father of the Hydrogen Bomb, “persuaded her to develop her country’s deuterium in a 1971 visit to the Malacañang Palace.”

The register of Edward Teller Papers in the Hoover Institution Library & Archives in California shows that Teller, who died in 2003, visited the Philippines in 1981 to discuss matters such as nuclear fusion in conferences held in the country.

In later years, Imelda would drop Teller from her deuterium soliloquy and replace him with Harold Urey, “the discoverer of deuterium.” By this time, she claimed that it was Urey, who died in 1981, who informed her of the deuterium deposits in the Philippines.

Imelda, a notoriously unreliable narrator, repeatedly insists that Irving Berlin wrote the song “Heaven Watch the Philippines” specifically for her. The American composer himself denied this, according to a note in the interview of the Marcos couple published in the August 1987 issue of Playboy.

In the documentary The Kingmaker, Imelda says with a straight face that she visited the Calauit Safari Park after she returned from exile in 1991 and was saddened at what it had become. A caretaker interviewed in the documentary flatly denies this.

By 2015 Imelda and her son began doubling down on their deuterium claims.

In a video posted in one of the Facebook pages of the Marcos loyalist group Friends of Imelda Romualdez Marcos (FIRM), Imelda is seen hawking deuterium in, of all places, the wake of one of her most ardent supporters.

“[Mayroon] akong produkto na deuterium,” she says before the mourners that included the husband of the deceased. “Siya and magiging ating pang-gasolina . . . 20 centavos of deuterium is your fuel per month.”

Imelda said she would be meeting someone about deuterium the next day (the wake took place around late April-early May 2015).  She added that FIRM would be the “foundation of the mission for mothering world peace” and that they would bring peace on earth using deuterium.

Shortly after, Bongbong, in an interview in the June 29-July 6, 2015 issue of BizNews Asia, said that his “mother had access to deuterium deposits,” which had “bequeathed” to her grandchildren.

Imelda found new partners in deuterium ventures within the last seven years, including one with groups such as the MHLK (M for Maharlika) Foundation and the Official Maharlika Association (OMA) where she is “Chairman – Emeritus.”

A photograph of an OMA board meeting with Imelda at the helm can be seen on its website. In one video of an OMA event held in late 2019—shortly before the pandemic, and about a year after Imelda’s conviction for graft by the Sandiganbayan—she claimed that the “vision” of the deuterium project was “paradise regained unto infinity” and that, contrary to her earlier claims, she had been involved in deuterium, “for several decades, even before [she] was first lady.”

Beside her while she delivered her speech—where she also claimed that she seeded the money that gave birth to Silicon Valley—was businessman Paul Monozca, chairman and CEO of OMA and related firms Formula Green Corporation and Formula Green Foundation. In recent years, Monozca made the news—before actually making the news via OMA’s “affiliate,” Maharlika TV— because of his involvement in the controversial planned Coral World Park in Palawan.

A document titled “Maharlika Crypto Whitepaper 2020-2021: An Asset-Backed Cryptocurrency Issued by the Formula Green Foundation for Humanity” discusses yet another venture of the Maharlika/Monozca group: Maharlika Crypto, once also called Maharlika Coin or the MHLK-IRM (presumably Imelda Romualdez Marcos) crypto.

The white paper claims that this cryptocurrency—perhaps closer in description to a toke—is backed up by the “Global Assets and Resources” of the “Maharlika Trust,” “the second largest philanthropic fund in the world,” and the “raw material of fusion and its futures.” These “futures” refer partly to Formula Green’s “concessions of the world’s largest deposit of the raw material of fusion energy called ‘Deuterium’ and stakes in the industry verticals including hydrogen economy.”

OMA is supposed to be a “movement of 10 million followers.” Among its “eight key groups” is the “Talleano Estate (direct heir).” While the Marcoses have repeatedly denied having ties to the Tallanos and the Tallano gold claim, the tale of the Kingdom of Maharlika ruled by the Tallanos, purported owners of the entire Philippine archipelago, appears on the website of the Marcos-affiliated party Kilusang Bagong Lipunan.

A further online search leads to a central document of the Tallano myth, the alleged Original Certificate of Title of the whole Philippines. An annotation in this “OCT-04”—several times proven fake—shows another connection of the myth to deuterium fakery: purportedly made in 1941, ten years after the discovery of deuterium.  The annotation states that “Dr. H. F. Bain, Mining Affair Adviser to the Philippine Commonwealth” found “in the area 75 kilometers Southeast of Mindanao, a large undeterminable volume of Deuterium.”

It appears that practically every major Marcos-related group—from FIRM, which claimed in 2019 to have eight million members to the supposedly 10-million strong OMA— are closely linked to Imelda’s deuterium claims.

The Marcoses are also connected to other groups giving away deuterium share certificates: the Royal Alpha Omega Ring Trading Corporation and Philippine Deuterium Development Management Corporation. In April 2018, then Ilocos Norte governor Imee Marcos attended the birthday of the group’s founding chairman, Mahal na Hari (MNH) Filemon O. Reambonanza.

Even one of Imelda’s closest supporters and founder of Marcos Loyalists for God, Country and People, Serafia “Cherry” Cobarrubias, is listed as a board member of the MHLK Foundation. Yet another staunch Marcos defender, Rita Gadi, in the June 9, 2020 episode of her online program The Rita Gadi Hour, claimed that in the middle of the pandemic, Imelda was “finishing” (“tinatapos na”) the deuterium project which had a permit from the government.

Gadi said Imelda already had the instrument needed to extract deuterium from the Philippine Deep and only needed investments “na kanyang inaayos ngayon.”  She repeated Imelda’s line about “paradise regained unto infinity,” and expressed belief that Imelda may be able to finish her deuterium project within that year and then, “maibibigay na niya sa atin sa Pilipinas ‘yang deuterium, the fusion of water and the energy.”    

Of course, 2020 came and went, but deuterium from the Philippine Deep remains a pipe dream.

WHAT’S IN IT FOR THE MARCOSES

Peddling the lies about deuterium have served the purpose of the Marcos family which has been clawing their way back into power over the last three decades.

After returning from exile, Imelda seemed to have latched on to Escosa’s deuterium claims. The imagined deuterium riches of the country would effectively undo the two most damaging legacies of the Marcos dictatorship: a plundered economy and a generation of Filipinos sent into a diaspora to earn a living.

From a propaganda point of view, the deuterium hoax has detracted from public discussions the Marcos plunder — that it is permissible to abandon the effort to recover their ill-gotten wealth since deuterium’s promised bounty would replenish what was stolen from the country’s coffers. Imelda said as much in a February 25, 2006 feature on her by The Independent.

“Our problems are temporary. All I am waiting for is for my lawyers to end these cases against me and I will bring about a new economic order,” she declared.

Barely questioned by media and scientists on this, both Imelda and Bongbong continue to use the deuterium hoax in projecting themselves as advocates for a green environment and hope for the country.  The promise of bounty —be it the Yamashita treasure, the Tallano gold, or deuterium in the Philippine Trench — calls for the surrender of the people’s trust to the machinations of the Marcoses.

It is the ultimate mother-and-son scam.

Originally published by Vera Files on September 29, 2019.

VICENTE AND FERDINAND

Sino sa inyo ang nagsuporta sa akin? Ilan lang? Sino? One or two. Ilan lang? Four, five six? Wala akong barangay captain, wala akong congressman, wala akong pera. Si Imee [Marcos] pa ang nagbigay. Sabi niya inutang daw niya. Si Imee supported me.

Pres. Rodrigo Duterte
Oct. 4, 2016

These statements by President Rodrigo Duterte, made during a meeting with local
officials of Luzon at the Dusit Thani Hotel in Makati City on October 4, 2016, are puzzling. For one, Duterte seems to have forgotten that one of the earliest “Duterte for President” groups was launched by barangay captains from Davao City in October 2014. For another, as reported by various media outlets, Imee Marcos is not listed in Duterte’s Statement of Contributions and Expenditures. However, as pointed out by Vera Files, the biggest contributor to Duterte’s campaign was Antonio “Tonyboy” Floirendo Jr., who was “among the prime movers of the Alyansa ng Mga Duterte at Bongbong (ALDUB), a
group that campaigned for a Duterte-Bongbong Marcos tandem.”

Antonio Sr., Floirendo’s father, was a known Marcos crony. He was chairman of the
Marcos administration party Kilusang Bagong Lipunan in the Davao Region, a position that, based on other files in the custody of the Presidential Commission on Good Government, he used to lobby for appointments of local officials in his domain.

Antonio Floirendo Sr. with Ferdinand Marcos, from Notes on the New Society II: The
Rebellion of the Poor by Ferdinand Marcos, 1976

Are there any available documents or accounts showing the Dutertes and the Marcoses
had a very close personal relationship prior to the leadup to the 2016 elections? In an academic workshop last year, a former journalist claimed that he had never known Duterte to praise Marcos when he was mayor of Davao City in the 1990s. What do we really know
about the purported ties of these political families?

There is adequate evidence to show that the political fortunes of the Dutertes have
been intimately tied with those of the Marcoses for decades, but insufficient evidence to show that the former were loyal to Ferdinand Marcos well before he became president. Among the few who seem to have the authority to claim the contrary is President Duterte. In his above-quoted October 2016 address, Duterte also said:

“I do not know if because you know my father was a Cabinet member of President
Marcos during the first term of his presidency. My father was one of the two who stood by Marcos in his darkest hours. Everybody was shifting to the Liberal at that time, kay Diosdado Macapagal. And it was only [Zamboanga del Sur Governor Bienvenido] Ebarle and my father who stood by Marcos.”

Again, the president’s meandering way of speaking aside, those claims are
confusing, given the facts of Philippine political history.

Vicente Duterte. from the 1967 Philippine Officials Review

Then Senate President Ferdinand Marcos defected to the Nacionalista Party in
1964, after it became clear that President Diosdado Macapagal would not honor the well-documented promise he had made to let Marcos be the standard bearer of the Liberal Party in 1965. There were, indeed, defections from NP to LP between 1964 and 1965, but the switching at that time did not result in only two incumbent governors from
Mindanao staying with the NP. The mass switching that led to that happened earlier, within the first year of the Macapagal administration, a development in keeping with the political
traditions practiced in the Philippines until today.

Was Vicente Duterte ever strongly identified with Ferdinand Marcos, who appointed
him Secretary of General Services on December 30, 1965? Tom Sykes, in his 2018 book The Realm of the Punisher: Travels in Duterte’s Philippines, writes: “Vicente didn’t take to national politics [after his appointment as General Services secretary] and soon went
back to practicing law in Davao. On 21 February 1968, he collapsed in court from heart failure and died.” Sykes’ information on Vicente’s date and manner of death appear to be correct. However, Vicente did not leave Marcos’ cabinet simply to return to private
practice.

In June 1967, President Marcos signed Republic Act No. 4867, splitting the undivided Province of Davao into Davao del Norte, Davao del Sur, and Davao Oriental. An election was held on November 14 of the same year for the representatives of Davao del Sur and Davao Oriental, coinciding with the 1967 midterm election. Vicente ran against two
other Nacionalistas for the congressional seat of Davao del Sur. Artemio Al. Loyola, the official Nacionalista candidate and long-time member of the Davao Press Club, won; Vicente, who was still a member of the NP but ran as an independent, trailed the winner by over 8,000 votes.

The loss—his first and only—must have been devastating to Vicente. Four years earlier, he won his second elected term as governor of the Province of Davao, beating two LP candidates.

But if Vicente had enjoyed Marcos’ support, why was he not an official NP candidate in 1967? If the account of Rodrigo’s sister Eleanor “Baby” Duterte, in the I-Witness documentary “People Power sa Davao” is to be believed, Vicente actually did not leave Marcos’ cabinet in the best of terms. According to Eleanor, her father was fed up with the corruption he had witnessed in Malacañang under Marcos.

But Marcos must have trusted Vicente, who as Secretary of General Services would have
had to deal with government suppliers and contractors constantly as well as sensitive communications that went through his department. Vicente’s association with Davao may have also played a role in the decision to bring him to Malacañang. The first two who occupied that position before Vicente came from Mindanao, and the appointment arguably had been seen as one for Mindanawon politicians. Vicente’s replacement was Salih Ututalam from Sulu.

But even with the power and trust he was given, was Vicente ever personally loyal to
Marcos? In his profile in the 1967 Philippine Officials Review, Vicente is described thusly:

During his incumbency as Davao governor, he was once cited as one of the
“Outstanding Governors” of the Philippines. Twice offered study-travel grants to observe the progress of community development in Thailand and Israel, he declined both as a matter of conviction and principle for he was then in the opposition party. At the height
of the Liberal Party power, it was his distinction to be the only Nacionalista governor in Mindanao who did not change party affiliation for personal, political convenience or even in the face of presidential pressure.

Based on this, it can be surmised that the loyalty President Duterte was alluding to in
October 2016 was not tantamount to allegiance to Marcos, who was still a Liberal when that party was dominant. Vicente was, unlike his many flip-flopping compatriots, a true Nacionalista stalwart, who, either because of his own political ambitions or because he did not see eye to eye with his party’s turncoat leader, decided to return from Malacañang to Davao, where he probably thought that he was still, according to his 1967 profile, seen as someone who “rendered personalized service to his constituents” and had “humble, modest and unassuming self-qualities” that “endeared him to his legion of friends and admirers.”

While campaigning in Batac, Ilocos Norte in February 2016, Rodrigo was quoted as
saying, “Speaking of loyalty and friendship, I am proud to say that my father was a close ally of President Marcos until his death.” Why did Rodrigo decide to package Vicente as a true-blue Marcos loyalist, despite evidence to the contrary? Were the votes of those who love the Marcoses worth bending the truth about Vicente?

THE YELLOW-LOYALIST-LEFTIST CANDIDATE

Davao City was where Rodrigo Duterte cut his teeth as a politician, seeing up close conflicts ranging from squabbles in the local judiciary to bloody urban warfare to the movements that led to the overthrow of the Marcos dictatorship.

His involvement in the last one has not been extensively discussed. Various sources note that he was identified with anti-Marcos forces because he is the son of Soledad “Soling” Duterte, a known leader of the opposition in Mindanao.

Soledad Duterte, Mr. & Ms. January 6, 1984

In 1977, according to historian Macario Tiu in the book Davao: Reconstructing
History from Text and Memory, church leaders in Davao “dared [to] initiate open protest actions” against the Marcos regime. The protests gradually intensified and became much more frequent after the assassination of Ninoy Aquino in August 1983. Soon after, there
sprung what was called the United Opposition of Region XI. According to Tiu, among the leaders of organizations forming the alliance was Soling Duterte of Kalikuhan alang sa Tawhanong Kagawasan, or KATAWHAN.

Ana Maria Clamor, in the monograph entitled NGO and PO Electoral Experiences: Documentation and Analysis, notes a major activity of this alliance was the almost weekly non-violent “Yellow Friday” marches in Davao City’s major thoroughfares, which “drew inspiration from the yellow confetti rallies in Makati.”

After the dust of the EDSA Revolution settled, President Corazon Aquino appointed
Zafiro Respicio officer-in-charge of Davao City. Soling Duterte’s son, Rodrigo, was appointed OIC vice mayor. There are sources who say that, at the time, Rodrigo was a logical choice for the position, even though he was a member of the Marcos-era bureaucracy.

Clamor, writing in 1993, says that Rodrigo was “one of the few city fiscals who actively supported the Cory-Doy [Laurel] ticket and joined the February 1986 revolution.” Adrian Chen, citing Luz Ilagan, in an article published in November 2016 for the New Yorker, wrote that “Duterte was able to help dissidents without compromising his position in the government” by ensuring that activists arrested in Davao City were not abused while under custody.

Davao-based journalist-turned-academic Jose Jowel Canuday, in an interview published in the September 2016-March 2017 issue of Social Transformations: Journal of the Global South, recalled that Rodrigo was always in the “parliament of the streets” in Davao, and that there were even claims he “arranged for meetings between foreign journalists and the [communist rebels, the New People’s Army].” Canuday, however, noted that older Davao journalists “initially failed to notice Duterte,” as he was “just in the sidelines” of the opposition.

Picture of Yellow Friday rally in Davao City, photographs by H.V. Paredes, from Mr. &
Ms., Nov. 4, 1983.

An interesting claim about Rodrigo during those times was made by presidential
sister Baby Duterte. In a documentary broadcast by GMA Network, she says Ferdinand Marcos himself called up Rodrigo to try to silence Soling, but the dutiful son refused. Historians Lisandro Claudio and Patricio Abinales took it as fact, stating in their chapter in the book A Duterte Reader that “the dictator believed he could call on Rodrigo to quell anti-government sentiment in Davao City, even if these protests were being led by the former’s own mother.”

It seems more likely that Rodrigo and Ferdinand Marcos never interacted after the
death of Rodrigo’s father. During the San Beda Law Grand Alumni Homecoming in November 26, 2016, while discussing Ferdinand Marcos’ recent burial in the Libingan ng mga Bayani, Duterte claimed that he had thrice tried to tender his resignation as a Davao City prosecutor because of his mother’s anti-government activities, but his requests were denied by his superior. He then segued into his family’s relationship with the Marcoses, stating that “there’s nothing close, we [himself or the Dutertes] did not have any dinner together [with the Marcoses] except one or two.”

SUPPORTED BY MARCOS’S POLITICAL ALLIES

Nevertheless, various sources note that he was supported by influential pro-Marcos
individuals when he ran for mayor of Davao City in the 1988 elections. David Timberman, in A Changeless Land: Continuity and Change in Philippine Politics, notes that Duterte won the mayoralty in 1988 because he was “backed by many of Davao’s traditional
politicians.” Clamor, citing a Mindanao Daily Mirror source, and a November 2005 article published in Davao Today name some of these politicians: former representative Manuel Garcia; Elias Lopez, KBL mayor of Davao City before the EDSA Revolution; and Alejandro
Almendras, Vicente’s cousin. Almendras’ friendship with Ferdinand Marcos blossomed while both of them were first-term senators between 1959 and 1965.

Almendras organized a political party called Lakas ng Dabaw for the 1988 elections. Clamor speculates that Rodrigo was chosen by the party as its candidate for mayor because “he had serious rifts” with Respicio, and also because of “personal ambition and consanguinial affinity with Almendras.” Davao Today states that Almendras “supported” Rodrigo’s candidacy, something that Soling initially did not; “one politician in the family is enough,” she said. Cory Aquino also did not support Rodrigo, endorsing Respicio
instead.

Rodrigo won in 1988, his first in an uninterrupted series of electoral victories. In addition to backing from pro-Marcos elites, Rodrigo, Clamor claims, won partly because of an “unholy alliance” between Rodrigo’s supporters and those of Jun Pala, another mayoral candidate and a key figure in the violent anti-communist rebel militia called Alsa Masa. To synthesize Clamor’s and Davao Today’s narratives, theirs was a divide-and-conquer tactic: Pala, secretly funded by Alemendras’ group, would take some of the votes that would have gone to Respicio, who supported Alsa Masa; Duterte, who was running with pro-Marcos
people but had a “leftist” reputation because of his mother, would take both pro-Marcos and anti-Marcos votes, as well as votes from areas under the control of the New People’s Army.

Clamor claims that the NPA’s support for Rodrigo came about due to its resentment
of Respicio’s alliance with Alsa Masa. Jonathan Miller, however, in his biography of Rodrigo, highlights the role in the would-be mayor’s 1988 campaign played by Leoncio “Jun” Evasco, an ex-NPA member detained for rebellion in North Cotabato and incarcerated and tortured in Davao City. Rodrigo was the public prosecutor who
succeeded in getting Evasco a five-year sentence, but, according to Miller, throughout his time in prison, Evasco was visited by Rodrigo. As with many other detained rebels, Evasco was freed after the EDSA Revolution. He became a key member of Samahan ng Ex-Detainees Laban sa Detensyon at Aresto, or SELDA, which later played an important
role in efforts to ensure that human rights violation victims of the Marcos regime are recognized and compensated. Rodrigo enticed Evasco to become his campaign manager in 1988; certainly, he continued to have some pull with the NPA at that time.

If Rodrigo (with Evasco) and Pala (with Almendras) did enact a vote division strategy, it worked like a charm: Rodrigo obtained 100,021 votes; Respicio, 93,676; Pala, 71,355; while two independent also-rans trailed behind. Clamor also reads the immediate concession of Pala—only a day after the then-manual elections—as further evidence that he ran for Rodrigo’s benefit.

THE ENEMY OF MY ENEMY MAY BE MY FRIEND

According to a declassified United States Department of State cable dated May 8, 1992, then Mayor Rodrigo Duterte was among Davao City’s “most vocal” backers of 1992 presidential candidate and Marcos crony Eduardo “Danding” Cojuangco. That was even if Rodrigo was not a member of the Nationalist People’s Coalition, Cojuangco’s party.

Apparently, by 1992, Duterte did not see the need to stick close to the Davao-based Marcos loyalists who helped him win his first term as Davao City mayor in 1988. The 1992 cable highlighted how majority of Davaoeños “agree that Duterte’s Lakas ng Dabaw party is the best political machine in the city and will probably reelect the mayor.” But the presidential candidate that he backed lost. Cojuangco placed a respectable third in a seven-cornered fight, not only nationally, but also in Davao City.

In the 1998 elections, Duterte supported the presidential bid of Joseph Estrada,
long an ally of the Marcoses, who also had the backing of Cojuangco. The support was mutual; reportedly, Estrada even considered including Duterte in his senatorial line-up as early as in February 1997.

Ever the pragmatist, Duterte eventually allied himself with Gloria Arroyo, who succeeded Estrada after his “constructive resignation” in January 2001. In mid-2002, Duterte was appointed Arroyo’s anti-crime adviser. Apparently, the president wanted Duterte to have a bigger role in battling crime nationwide, but as reported by Philippine Star, Duterte said, “I don’t want to do anything other than [be an adviser] because I do not want to jeopardize my primary task as city mayor.” He was also quoted as saying that “I am only good in my
city or in the region but not in the entire country. I’m afraid I’d fail because I am not really cut out for it.”

Perhaps Duterte, already well-attuned to the volatility of Philippine politics, knew
that closely associating himself with any Philippine president might hinder the continuation of his dominance in Davao. Indeed, during the 2004 elections, Duterte’s association with Arroyo, who was gunning for a full elected term, was apparently severed and reconnected
numerous times.

During her elected term as president, Arroyo had become exceedingly unpopular, hounded by allegations of cheating in the 2004 elections, human rights violations, and corruption. Duterte once again did what a pragmatic politician would do. According to Grace Uddin of Davao Today, in April 2010, instead of endorsing Gilberto “Gibo” Teodoro Jr., Arroyo’s former secretary of defense and anointed successor, Duterte publicly declared his support for Senator Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III of the Liberal Party, who, through fortuitous circumstances, had become one of the most visible faces of the
anti-Arroyo political opposition. Uddin quoted Duterte as saying that “Aquino is easy to talk with. He is a principled man and clean.”

Carlos Isagani Zarate, then secretary general of the Union of Peoples’ Lawyers in Mindanao, told Uddin that Duterte chose the candidate likeliest to win, even if it meant supporting someone he had not been previously associated with over a friend like Estrada. Estrada at the time was attempting a Malacañang comeback. Indeed, the nationwide outpouring of grief for Noynoy’s mother, Cory Aquino, after her death on
August 1, 2009, made it clear that Noynoy was a viable contender for the presidency in 2010.

Even before Cory Aquino’s death, Duterte had already resolved to throw his lot with
the Liberal Party, which counted among its members Peter Tiu Laviña, one of his most trusted men. In a March 2015 article, Edwin Espejo stated that it was Duterte who took over as Davao City’s LP chair after Laviña bowed out in April 2009. In a November 18, 2009, press release from then Senator Mar Roxas’ office, Duterte was described as giving Roxas “the royal treatment” when the latter visited Davao City that month. The statement relayed that Duterte personally endorsed Roxas’ vice presidential bid because “limpio
ini”—“[Roxas] is clean.”

And so, for a brief moment in Philippine history, Duterte seemingly went full yellow, the color associated with the Aquinos and the non-violent protestors who fought against the Marcos dictatorship. Duterte even ran in 2010—for the position of vice mayor because of term limits—as a member of the Liberal Party. In an article posted on her blog in 2011, Raissa Robles pointed out that Duterte’s running mate, his daughter Sara, ran under PDP-Laban, whose vice presidential candidate, Jejomar Binay, was running with the Partido ng Masang Pilipino’s standard bearer, Estrada. Binay and Estrada were the top vote-getters in Davao City. In a way, the Dutertes were still shrewdly supporting a pro-Marcos presidential candidate while appearing to be very close to an anti-Marcos one.

THE 2016 DUTERTE-MARCOS CONVERGENCE

Besides having presidents of the Philippines as members, the Marcos and Duterte
families have many other things in common. For one, both families have patriarchs who had high positions in the undivided Province of Davao.

Wilson Leon Godshall, in the article “Can the Philippines Maintain Independence?,” published in Social Science in October 1935, says Mariano Marcos, Ferdinand’s father, was appointed Deputy-Governor-at-Large of Davao in 1931 by Governor-General Dwight F. Davis. Mariano’s duty, according to Godshall, “was to procure reliable and direct information concerning the state of affairs and to prepare a program to correct evils.” However, Godshall says when the acting governor was replaced, the new governor did not act upon Mariano Marcos’ intelligence or recommendations. Mariano eventually returned home to the Ilocos region, where he died during the Second World War. Thus, it was unlikely that he ever interacted with Vicente Duterte—appointed governor of Davao from 1958-1959 and elected to the same position from 1959-1965—as Vicente and his family were still in the Visayas before, during, and immediately after the war. Vicente was even appointed as acting mayor of Danao, Cebu—his birthplace—from January 1946 until July 1947, when Manuel Roxas appointed a fellow LP member in his place

Both the Marcoses and the Dutertes also have links with the wealthy Villar family and the Nacionalista Party, whose long-time president is former senator Manny Villar. To cite one instance of such ties, the 2019 senatorial campaign of Imee Marcos was partly financed by Manny Villar and his brother, Virgilio Villar, based on her Statement of Contributions and Expenditures. Duterte’s 2016 campaign was not personally financed by a Villar, but a stockholder in one of Villar’s companies, Marcelino C. Mendoza, was a top contributor.

Then President-elect Rody Duterte met with Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, Jr., who lost in the vice-presidential race, in Davao City June 11, 2016.Photo by Kiwi Bulaclac of Davao City Mayor’s Office. From Mindanews.

During the 2016 campaign, Duterte said that if he failed to curb criminality and corruption in the country within three months of becoming president, he would let Bongbong Marcos take over. He might have been playing to the crowd; Duterte made these remarks while campaigning at the Mariano Marcos State University in Batac, Ilocos Norte. Still, many
latched on to the Duterte-Marcos tandem, even if they were not running mates. Even the influential Iglesia ni Cristo went for the pair, officially endorsing them only a few days before the elections.

The results of the exit poll conducted by TV5 and Social Weather Stations, as reported by Mahar Mangahas in his Philippine Daily Inquirer column on May 14, 2016, suggest that the unofficial tandem was beneficial to both Marcos and Duterte. According to Mangahas, of Duterte’s 40 percentage points of the vote, “only 13 came from voters of his co-candidate Alan Peter Cayetano; the bulk of 18 came from Marcos voters, and another 6 from [voters of Leni Robredo, running mate of administration candidate Mar Roxas].” If the exit poll was representative of the actual vote, then of the 16.6 million or so votes obtained by Duterte, about 45 percent, or nearly 7.5 million, came from those who also voted for Marcos.

The results of the 2016 elections show that the Duterte-Marcos tandem was truly
formidable. Why, then, did they not formally run together? A member of Bongbong Marcos media team told VERA Files during the 2016 election campaign that Bongbong’s first choice as presidential candidate was Duterte. But he got impatient with Duterte’s dilly-dallying on whether to run or not so he teamed up with former senator Miriam Santiago, who was already very sick at that time.

There are other explanations. One may be because some who wanted to vote for Marcos did not like Duterte. Anti-communists, for instance, did not seem keen on supporting someone with known ties to the left. When Duterte controversially permitted a hero’s burial in Davao City for New People’s Army leader Leoncio “Ka Parago” Pitao in July 2015, for example, he received condemnation from anti-communist lawmaker Pastor Alcover of the Alliance for Nationalism and Democracy.

Perhaps some in the Duterte camp also considered themselves fundamentally opposed to
the Marcoses. As previously discussed, Duterte had ties to the Liberal Party, even becoming the party’s chairman in Davao City at one time. There was even talk that Duterte might become the LP’s standard bearer before Mar Roxas was formally proclaimed the party’s candidate in July 2015.

Moreover, though Duterte-Marcos seemed like a logical combination—strongman from the
south, son of a strongman from the north— there is no indication that Rodrigo Duterte and the Marcoses were an “item” before 2015.

It is hard to identify people within the inner circle of Duterte’s 2016 campaign—excluding financial contributor Antonio Floirendo Jr.—who have a long history with the Marcoses. Many in that circle are identified with post-EDSA Revolution administrations such as Angelito Banayo, Jesus Dureza, Emmanuel Piñol, Carlos Dominguez III, and Jose
Calida. Of that group, Calida is known to have supported a Duterte-Marcos tandem during the 2016 campaign, and, being the son of Ilocano settlers in Davao, also has ties to the ethnolinguistic group most closely associated with the Marcoses. But he had also been
linked to Ramos and served under the Arroyo administration at a time when the Marcoses considered themselves members of the opposition.

One who may have been a link between the Dutertes and the Marcoses during the 2016
election season is Salvador Panelo, currently Duterte’s Presidential Legal Counsel and spokesperson. Panelo actually ran for senator under Imelda Marcos’ Kilusang Bagong Lipunan ticket in the 1992 elections. He placed 125th among 164 candidates. A United Press International report, dated August 2, 1995, names Panelo as “a lawyer for the Marcoses” at the time Bongbong Marcos had been convicted of tax evasion by the Quezon City Regional Trial Court. Much later, Panelo would also include the Dutertes among his clients.

In March 2015, Panelo was quoted by Rosalinda Orosa of Pilipino Star Ngayon as saying that he knew a presidentiable willing to give way to Duterte in 2016. The would-be candidate was not named, but Panelo said that he/she wanted to be Duterte’s running mate. One wonders if this was Panelo brokering a Duterte-Marcos pairing.

A few months later, on June 15, 2015, the country finally saw Duterte and Bongbong
Marcos together, as the latter was a guest in the former’s weekly television program Gikan sa Masa Para sa Masa. While the focus of the interview was largely federalism, they also talked about the 2016 elections. At one point, Marcos said, “sumusunod lang ako kay
Duterte. He is my mentor in politics. Ako’y tagahanga lang.” Duterte jokingly replied, “hindi ko tuloy malaman kung ako ba ang presidente o siya.”

That interview was sufficient to fuel talk of a Duterte-Marcos tandem. Alas, it was not meant to be. Panelo, one of the few in Malacañang who has unmistakable ties to both the Marcoses and the Dutertes, may have failed as matchmaker.

Imelda Marcos greets President Duterte after his State-of-the-Nation address in July 2016. Malacañang photo.

The double issue of Kasarinlan: Philippine Journal of Third World Studies, entitled “Marcos Pa Rin! Ang Mga Pamana at Sumpa ng Rehimeng Marcos,” notes that there may be two extremes among current Marcos loyalists: “(1) those who literally worship former president Ferdinand E. Marcos as a divine entity (absolute loyalty), and (2) those who at least appear loyal to him for electoral purposes (contingent loyalty).” The Dutertes seem to be closer to the latter. Duterte may have been the president who finally had Ferdinand Marcos buried in the Libingan ng mga Bayani, but that may not be a reliable indicator of who he is personally loyal to, given that he also allowed a hero’s burial for an NPA commander in 2015.

How long will the Dutertes see the Marcoses as politically useful? How long until the Marcoses fully reassert their continuing dominance in Philippine politics? Perhaps, while they are figuring out who will run as what in 2022, the rest of the electorate can find out if there are alternatives to political elites, whether from the north or the south, who have long worn out their welcome.