Month: June 2024

Bagong Pilipinas: Shallow, farcical
Posted on by diktaduraadmin

Originally published by Vera Files on June 15, 2024

It was my nearly seven-year-old son, who occasionally plays “retro” (2000s) video games, who helped me figure it out. I was puzzling over why the so-called Bagong Pilipinas hymn seemed so familiar. While we were listening to the song, my son asked, “Why does that sound like the Wii Sports song?” Indeed, the guitar riff/backing piano of the hymn sounds awfully similar to the main motif of the title theme of Wii Sports, which was released in 2006. That motif in turn sounds very similar to the piano riff of the 1987 song “The Promise” by When in Rome. The Wii Sports theme seems more reminiscent of the hymn, however, because both seem to seek the evocation of triumphant feelings—also, they appear to be in the same key, B major, while “The Promise” is a four-chord song in C major.

My son goes to public school. I do not know if his school will fully comply with Memorandum Circular no. 52, s. 2024, “Prescribing the Recital of the Bagong Pilipinas Hymn and Pledge During Flag Ceremonies,” signed by Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin, by authority of the president of Bagong Pilipinas, Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. If my son does have to hear the hymn during their weekly flag ceremonies, he may end up thinking about those times we played Wii bowling together instead of nationalism.

Of course, many other songs utilize a similar-sounding pattern. I do not have sufficient musical knowledge (I only had about four years of half-forgotten piano lessons followed by four years in a high school choir) to say much more about the song as a musical piece, deferring instead to more musically inclined critics who have noted that the melody is “awful,” and the song overall is a “[light] pop song” and “more of a campaign tune than a pledge of allegiance to the country.” As noted by the Philippine Daily Inquirer article quoting those critics, the hymn’s composer, the person(s) who wrote the lyrics, and the performers behind the only known studio recording of the song were not mentioned in the Malacanang announcement about MC no. 52. Republic Act no. 8491, the Flag and Heraldic Code of the Philippines, specifies that “National Anthem, whether played or sung, shall be in accordance with the musical arrangement and composition of Julian Felipe”; what’s to stop people from singing the Bagong Pilipinas hymn however they want, since MC no. 52 does not specify whose musical arrangement and composition of the song to follow?

Bagong Pilipinas Kick-Off Rally

The song was performed live (with a lengthy drum-and-dance interlude) toward the last hour of the multi-million peso Bagong Pilipinas Kick-Off Rally that took place at the Quirino Grandstand in Manila on January 28, 2024. That event was first scheduled to take place in December 2023. It is unclear if the song debuted during the rally; the numerous performers were announced by the event’s two emcees (one of whom was Bongbong’s first cousin once removed, Paolo Bediones) but the brains behind the song were not mentioned during the Kick-Off. Bongbong did not draw any particular attention to the song, which was sung before he gave what sounded very much like a campaign speech, about a year and seven months after he took his oath of office as president, saying that Bagong Pilipinas is not merely a slogan, but a set of ideals, before resorting to trite sloganeering (for instance, “Sa Bagong Pilipinas, bawal ang waldas.”)

More information about the song finally became readily available with the release of “Music Video Highlights of the Bagong Pilipinas Kick-Off Rally,” basically a “lyric video” for the song, uploaded on the YouTube Channel of Radio Television Malacanang (RTVM) on February 2, 2024. The video’s description states the following: “Ang musikang ginamit ay may pamagat na ‘Panahon ng Pagbabago’ na isinulat ni Florante, inayos ni Marvin Querido at may karagdagang komposisyon ni Jedi Cris Celeste” (underlining mine). Now why would the government not want to highlight that these talented individuals are now the composers and arrangers of a mandatory flag ceremony song, especially folk rock icon Florante, composer of “Ako’y Pinoy” (which he performed at the Kick-Off Rally) and a true-blue Marcos loyalist?

Florante

Florante said during a concert in 2016 that his song “Upuan,” written in 1983, after the assassination of Marcos opposition leader Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr., was made with Ferdinand Sr. in mind. He asked that the audience imagine that the persona singing the song is the late president; its lyrics present him as a sympathetic character, tired but dedicated to duty: “Nais ko ng magpahinga/Marami na ’kong nagawa at natulungan/Ako’y labis na nag-aalala/Baka itong mga aso ay maulol at magwala,” the potentially rabid “dogs” being Marcos’s Armed Forces chief of staff Gen. Fabian Ver and Philippine Constabulary chief Gen. Fidel Ramos.

Bongbong brought Florante with him during his official visits to Hawaii in the US and Vietnam to entertain the Filipino communities in those countries. In Hawaii, Bongbong said that Florante was his constant companion while they were in exile there.

Note that the February 2024 lyric video for Florante’s co-creation states that the song’s title is “Panahon ng Pagbabago,” while the title used above the lyrics annexed to MC no. 52 is “Panahon na ng Pagbabago,” a line repeated in the song six times. Which is it? Schoolchildren, who may have to write the correct title in exams or state it in graded recitations, need to know. They already have a hard time remembering the correct title of “Lupang Hinirang.”

Bagong Pilipinas pre-launch by PNP

Again, it is unclear when the song was first released. During the “pre-launching” of the Bagong Pilipinas campaign by the Philippine National Police, held on January 24, 2024 at the PNP national headquarters in Camp Crame, what was played repeatedly was not the hymn, but something that evokes terror in many and fascistic fervor in many others: “Bagong Pagsilang,” the march of the “Bagong Lipunan” of dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos. In the video of the pre-launching uploaded by the PNP on Facebook, at the 44:15, 45:51, and 47:51 mark, the rock rendition of the song by the band Plethora—who sometimes accompanied Bongbong during his presidential campaign rallies—can be heard. (Incidentally, Plethora released a completely different “Bagong Pilipinas (New Philippines)” song on YouTube a day after the January 28 Kick-Off rally; did they unsuccessfully pitch their work as a potential Bagong Pilipinas anthem?) During the “ceremonial pinning of the Bagong Pilipinas pin,” (starting at the 46:50 mark) the more traditional choral and marching band arrangement of “Bagong Pagsilang” was played.

Instead of the Bagong Pilipinas Pledge/Panata sa Bagong Pilipinas, the police (at the video’s 49:43 mark) recited a Pledge of Commitment that starts with, “I pledge to embrace the vision of Bagong Pilipinas.” About twenty minutes later, there is a cauldron-and-torch-lighting ceremony, which is punctuated, at the 1:12:59 mark, by the playing of a brief snippet of “Bagong Pagsilang.” Toward the end of the ceremonies (after the 1:15:59 mark) everybody sings the march (referred to as the “Bagong Lipunan hymn”) accompanied by the PNP band. While many of the younger officers seemed to simply stand in attention, National Intelligence Coordinating Agency head Ricardo de Leon—aide of Imee Marcos during the dictatorship, who escorted the Marcoses to Hawaii after the 1986 revolt—and some senior officers can be seen singing the song they appeared to know by heart.

It was as if the PNP were saying that they understood plainly: Junior’s “Bagong Pilipinas” is simply the revival of the elder Marcos’s Bagong Lipunan.

Imelda Marcos’ role in Bagong Lipunan creation

Both critics and supporters of the whole Bagong Pilipinas campaign have already noted this. But it is difficult to locate any written order, from one-man lawmaker Marcos Sr. himself or the secretary of what was then called the Department of Education and Culture, mandating the singing of “Bagong Pagsilang” during flag ceremonies, which was certainly done. The song’s lyrics could be found in numerous publications a few months after martial law was declared. It was in books about the 1973 Philippine Constitution. It was in copies of the Philippine Journal of Education. It was in history textbooks. Interestingly, it is not in the 1979 edition of Binhi: Sining at Komunikasyon I, one of the World Bank-funded textbooks issued for public schools. The book does contain a poem titled, “Imelda, ang Uliran,” by Leticia S. Guzman Gagelonia, which starts with the following stanza: “Ang pangalang Imelda ay bukambibig kahit saan/Binibigkas na malimit ng kakampi o kaaway/Sa sandaling makaharap si Imelda ng sinuman/Madarama’y kasiglahan ng damdami’t kalooban.” One wonders if poets will soon swoon over Liza Araneta Marcos and make their work mandatory reading. Such textbook contents—including English-language ones containing lines such as “In the nation there is one mother – Imelda R. Marcos”—were removed after the EDSA Revolution.

The mother who brought joy to all is often described to have been involved in giving birth to “Bagong Pagsilang.” In his October 17, 1972 diary entry, Marcos Sr. said, “Before lunch I listened to the Philharmonic and the governments choral group rendition of the Bagong Pagsilang (A Rebirth) a march, and Bagong Lipunan (New Society) a hymn. Inspiring and moving. Imelda who asked composer Felipe de Leon to compose them is also thinking of plays in the Cultural Center and a movie on the New Society.”

At least one source claims that Imelda not only commissioned the songs, she also helped write the lyrics, which are attributed to Levi Celerio. A Times Journal article from September 20, 1979 says that Imelda did write the lyrics to a patriotic song, but not the Bagong Lipunan hymn or march. It was called “Maharlika,” a tribute to the seventh year of the New Society (almost fourteen years of the Marcos Sr. presidency overall) and was set to music by another esteemed composer, Lucio D. San Pedro. Its full lyrics were, “Ako’y isang Maharlika/Maka-Diyos/Ako’y isang Maharlika/Makabayan, makatao/Ang likas ng aking pagkatao/Ay ang maging Maharlika.” It wouldn’t be out of place today, given that, according to the Flag and Heraldic Code of the Philippines, the national motto is “Maka-Diyos, Maka-Tao, Makakalikasan, at Makabansa,” and Bongbong is insisting on making the word Maharlika—the name of his father’s fictitious guerrilla unit—nationally relevant again.

George Canseco’s Ako ay Pilipino 

Imelda’s song did not catch on. It was another patriotic Marcos-era anthem that contained the word that continues to be cherished (especially by the Marcoses and their loyalists) today: “Ako ay Pilipino,” written by George Canseco. Commissioned by the Marcoses, the song, which opens with the lines “Ako ay Pilipino/Ang dugo’y maharlika,” was first performed during the third inauguration of Marcos Sr. as president on June 30, 1981. Interestingly, two weeks after Canseco’s song was first heard publicly, he was accused of being a plagiarist, allegedly copying a religious song titled “The Tribute.” The song was actually titled “My Tribute (To God Be the Glory),” written by American gospel singer Andrae Crouch, and first released in 1972; parts of its chorus (To God be the glory/To God be the glory…) do sound uncannily similar to that of “Ako ay Pilipino.” In its September 12-15 issue, WE Forum published a letter from Canseco refuting the charge. He said he had never heard “The Tribute” before he wrote “Ako ay Pilipino,” but acknowledged the similarities when he heard the former weeks after Marcos’s inauguration. He called the “seeming similarity in part of THE TRIBUTE to AKO AY PILIPINO a freak accident.” He also defended the value of his work by praising it: “There is no denying the fact that almost every one who has listened to Ako ay Pilipino admits that he gets goose-pimples….No one can deny that most true-blooded Filipinos revere this song.” Will Florante similarly defend himself from Bagong Pilipinas hymn detractors by praising himself?

(Of course, Bongbong continues to use “Ako ay Pilipino.” Actress-singer Toni Gonzaga sang it during the proclamation rally for the Bongbong Marcos-Sara Duterte “Uniteam” tandem in February 2022. Besides preferring Gonzaga—perhaps partly due to her husband being a blood relative of his wife—Bongbong probably could not get the singer most associated with the song, Kuh Ledesma, to sing it, since she campaigned for another presidential candidate, Leni Robredo. With the Bagong Lipunan hymn, Bongbong has added another song with elements seemingly copied from earlier compositions in the Marcos repertoire.)

Going back to “Bagong Pagsilang”: most sources emphasize that Imelda was at best a patron—at worst a taskmaster—of the artists behind the Bagong Lipunan hymn and march. Here is a passage from Antonio Hila’s The Musical Arts in the New Society, a book published by the Imee Marcos-led Marcos Presidential Center in 2007:

In the musical circle, the commissioned new set of two songs, “Bagong Lipunan Hymn” and “Bagong Pagsilang March,” composed by Felipe P. De Leon, Sr., heralded a new hope of patronage for the serious classical composers, who, like his fellow artists in the other artistic fields, did not receive much support and encouragement before the Martial Law years. The songs which were scored in a hymn and a march tugged at the hearts of many listeners as they were written in the patriotic vein, using the folk tune “Inday sa Balitaw” in the hymn and the strains of the “National Anthem” in the march. Handsomely arranged for mixed chorus, the songs were sung by practically all choral groups that proliferated at the time both in the public as well as the private sectors.

Military men in two trucks fetched composer Felipe de Leon Jr.

Felipe de Leon Jr., in an interview published in the Musika journal in 2014, said that shortly after martial law was declared, in keeping with Imelda’s wishes, the military visited their home to ask his father to compose the first two pieces in the Bagong Lipunan canon: “Two days after the declaration of Martial Law, merong pumunta sa bahay na dalawang truck ng military, nang alas dos ng umaga, pinapatawag daw siya [De Leon Sr.] ni Imelda (at sinabing), ‘Kailangan namin sa Linggo ng dalawang bagong musika para maging opisyal ang pagtanggap ng mga tao sa bagong [lipunan]. Kailangan meron tayong imno at saka martsa.’” De Leon Jr. recalled. De Leon Jr. was asked by his father to help start writing the march to meet the deadline they couldn’t contest.

De Leon Sr. had been “asked” by the powers that be to compose a patriotic song once before: in 1942, during the Japanese Occupation, he was commissioned to write a song to replace Lupang Hinirang. The song’s title? “Awit sa Paglikha sa Bagong Pilipinas.”

Thus, whatever one thinks of “Bagong Pagsilang,” given the talents behind it, it served its purpose well. The grand Kasaysayan ng Lahi parade of 1974, held to inaugurate the Folk Arts Theater, which showed Philippine history from pre-Hispanic times up to the New Society era with a cast and audience of thousands, ended, as per a description in the July 27, 1974 issue of government-controlled Focus Philippines, with “ROTC [college-level Reserve Officers’ Training Corps] and PMT [high school-level Preparatory Military Training] cadets carrying lighted torches [singing] Bagong Pagsilang.” Footage of the parade shows flag-waving elementary school-age children singing the song as well.

Raul Casantusan Navarro, in the book Musika at Bagong Lipunan, while being largely critical of the martial law regime and its propaganda, says this of the song’s lyrics:

“Maganda ang larawang ipinapakita ng awit na ito sa pagpapalit ng panahon mula sa karimlan ng gabi…patungo sa tunay na liwanag sa pagdating ng umaga na kinakatawan ng Bagong Lipunan sa awit….Sa titulo pa lamang ng awit ay makikita na ang tema ay muling pagsimula sa pagbuo ng bayan upang gawin itong matatag at masagana para sa bawat Filipino.”

Navarro recalled that all schoolchildren were required to sing “Bagong Pagsilang” and the Bagong Lipunan hymn, and that those were the songs accompanying early morning radio news programs. Mix this sonic bombardment with exposure to various textbooks glorifying the Marcoses, and it becomes easier to understand why many still believe that the presidency is Bongbong’s birthright.

So why ditch such a storied song, which was played ad nauseam during Bongbong’s campaign events, which the police was apparently ready to re-adopt, for one with repetitive music and lyrics, which brings to mind either a late 2000s video game theme or a 1980s pop tune? Is it simply the insistence that there is something “new” (not novel) in Bagong Pilipinas? The saxophone-playing president—who has repeatedly said that he wanted to be a rock star when he was growing up—largely stood (though not exactly still) while the song played during the flag raising ceremony for 2024 Independence Day rites, occasionally grinning or seemingly trying to sing. Does he not find the Bagong Pilipinas hymn “inspiring and moving,” as his father found the Bagong Lipunan anthems?

Perhaps the juxtaposition is part of the point of MC no. 52: schoolchildren and the bureaucracy are forced to repeatedly say “Bagong Pilipinas” every week, precisely to make way for fond revisitings of the old Bagong Lipunan. For once, it becomes accurate to say that something was better during the martial law era; “Bagong Pagsilang” stirs something—patriotism, terror, maybe the desire to inflict terror—in most of us, while “Panahon [na] ng Pagbabago” seems to inspire only ridicule.

Cover photo from Jam Sta Rosa/AFP

The failed bid of Marcos Sr. to do a Romualdez
Posted on by diktaduraadmin

Originally published by Vera Files on September 7, 2023

“Imelda Marcos’s nephew funds Harvard’s new Tagalog language course,” went the headline of The FilAms August 29, 2023 exclusive story on House Speaker Ferdinand Martin Gomez Romualdez’s $1 million secret donation to Harvard University. Which, as pointed out by Carmela Fonbuena of the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, “amounts to around 10% of his declared total net worth as of 2016.”

At the end of The FilAm article it was mentioned that “in 1981, the Philippine government tried to donate money—also $1 million—to endow an academic chair at Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy to be named the Ferdinand E. Marcos Chair for East Asian and Pacific Studies. The pledge for the donation was withdrawn after critical editorials and reporting in U.S. newspapers. As reported in the Harvard Crimson, citing sources at the Fletcher School, ‘Marcos withdrew the funds because he was dissatisfied with his treatment by both Tufts and the U.S. government.’”

The FilAm erred on this part. It was in 1977 and not 1981. The endowment pledged to Tufts University was $1.5 million. It was not the Philippine government that made the commitment; it was the Marcos Foundation. And “tried to donate” simply fails to capture the ill intent of the parties involved in setting up the Chair of East Asian and Pacific Affairs.

In the “Official Month in Review” of the Official Gazette (vol. 73, no. 15) the entry for February 1, 1977 reads: “The President referred to the board of trustees of the Marcos Foundation a proposal to set up a chair at the prestigious Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University in Medford, Mass., US. The proposal was submitted to the President by Nihal W. Goonewardene, a Sri-Lankan who is directing the school’s Asia Pacific teaching fellowship program based in Manila.”

In an October 28, 1977 news report in the Tufts Observer, Tufts University’s student publication, Goonewardene broached the idea for the grant to Francisco Tatad, Marcos’s secretary of public information. The move was known to Edmund A. Gullion, dean of the Fletcher School.

Seven months later, on September 06, 1977, in a confidential cable from the United States Embassy in Manila to the Secretary of State in Washington, DC, it was mentioned that Gullion “departed Manila today after receiving a written commitment of the Marcos Foundation to provide an endowment of $1.5 million for the ‘The Ferdinand E. Marcos Chair of East Asian-Pacific Affairs’ at Fletcher.”

The Marcos Foundation

As he was about to start his second term as president and moved “by the strongest desire and the purest will to set the example of self-denial and self-sacrifice,” Marcos announced on December 31, 1969 that he had “decided to give away all my worldly possessions so that they may serve the greater needs of the greater number of our people.”

“I have therefore given away, by a general instrument of transfer, all my material possessions to the Filipino people through a foundation to be organized and to be known as the Ferdinand E. Marcos Foundation. It is my wish that these properties will be used in advancing the cause of education, science, technology and the arts,” Marcos said.

On January 21, 1970, formal papers of incorporation were filed before the Securities and Exchange Commission. In a Vera Files article, Miguel Paolo P. Reyes detailed the various uses that the Marcoses put their foundation into and how eventually the idea of dole outs from the Marcos Foundation “mutated into the scams that further propagated the myth of bounty for loyalty to the Marcoses.”

To go back to Gullion’s scheming with Marcos, according to the cable, on September 5, 1977, Gullion met with Marcos and Foreign Secretary Carlos P. Romulo. “Gullion opined that Marcos’ essential purpose in endowing the chair was to enhance his image in the U.S.,” it stated.

Gullion’s other concern was “how to handle the announcement of the endowment.” There were discussions that Romulo could do it when he attended the United Nations general assembly that October or Marcos himself in an official visit later that year.

The U.S. Embassy in Manila made a comment that they “did not encourage Gullion in his thinking about some sort of official visit by Marcos.”

It was Imelda, the other half of the conjugal dictatorship, who eventually went to the US. She headed the Philippine delegation to the UN general assembly and scheduled an event at Tufts University to announce the Ferdinand E. Marcos Chair of East Asian and Pacific Affairs endowment at Fletcher.

On October 26, 1977, a day before the announcement, the Boston Globe ran a report comparing the Marcos endowment with those that Harvard received in 1975, also $1 million from the Korean Traders Scholarship Association to put up a professorial chair in modern Korean economy and society. It was largely seen as a public relations effort to boost the image and encourage U.S. investments in South Korea, notwithstanding Park Chung-hee’s repressive regime.

The Boston Globe report foreshadowed Tufts’s justification for the Marcos endowment. “Harvard defended the $1 million Korean gift on the grounds that it was strictly for academic purposes and in no way ties Harvard to the controversial Korean government,” the article said.

Gullion was quoted as saying that “the money is from Philippine foundations and other organizations and not tied to the government . . . we shall be cooperating with the University of the Philippines in the studies. The endowment is from private funds, one of which is the Ferdinand Marcos Foundation, named after the president.”

The end part of the report noted Gullion’s “worldwide fundraising campaign . . . to support the school and its studies,” and “made several trips to the Philippines to discuss the grant with President Marcos and members of the foundations.”

There was, however, no other source for the endowment except the Marcos Foundation. But in the press accounts of the announcement, just like in the October 28, 1977 Associated Press (AP) report by Michael McPhee, “school officials and visiting dignitaries made several references that the money came from private sources and not from the Philippine government.”

Figure 1. Front page of the Tufts Observer, October 28, 1977
Front page of the Tufts Observer, October 28, 1977

The Protests

In the afternoon of October 27, 1977, as Imelda arrived at Tufts University under strict security measures, demonstrators hounded her on campus. AP reported that upon hearing the chant, “We don’t want your blood money,” university officials and members of Imelda’s entourage, including Romulo and Tatad, were “visibly annoyed.”

The Tufts Political Action Group and the Friends of the Filipino People led the protest that lasted throughout Imelda’s two-hour visit. Yet when news of Imelda’s visit appeared in the Marcos-controlled Daily Express on October 29, 1977, they were lumped together as “anti-Marcos elements . . . including many picket-for-hire-to-chant ready-made protest slogans.” The article was quick to add that there were no Filipinos among them and that Imelda’s visit lasted a full five hours.

Both details were lies.

Tufts University President Jean Mayer, said to be a personal friend of the Marcoses, hosted a luncheon for Imelda after a meeting with members of the faculty.

Protestors shouting “Who’s taking a beating while you’re in eating?” were heard by those taking part in the luncheon.

For Mayer, the Marcos endowment was a “sacrificial gift from a country struggling in its development.” He awarded Imelda a citation of distinction and said:

“By her determination, persistence, and ingenuity, Mrs. Marcos has succeeded in advancing the cause, not only of her people, but also the cause of the developing world in every corner of the globe. In partnership with her husband, Mrs. Marcos has been instrumental in establishing the Republic of the Philippines as a leader in the Third World and as an eloquent spokesman in the New Economic Order.”

“By her support of the artistic creativity, including revitalization of traditional and rural arts; her concern for ameliorating the problems of rapid urban development; her leadership of the Nutrition Foundation of the Philippines; and her support for UNICEF, Mrs. Marcos has demonstrated deep humane concern.”

“By her act of coming to Tufts University to inaugurate the Ferdinand E. Marcos Chair of East Asian and Pacific Affairs at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Mrs. Marcos has highlighted her interest in the continuation of the best possible relationships between government, business, and education, in the Philippines and the United States of America.”

During the luncheon ceremonies, the October 28, 1977 issue of the Tufts Observer reported that Imelda spoke briefly, expressing what she hoped the Marcos endowment could achieve. That it should “foster international understanding,” address the “poverty of accumulated literature on the Philippines,” which for her, were “largely one-sided and prejudiced.” Lastly, she hoped that the Marcos Chair would gain students who will espouse a “sensitivity to stand above bias and prejudice and appreciate the meaning of alternative existence.” A not so veiled way of saying that their effort should serve the Marcos autocracy.

As Imelda was whisked away in a white limousine from the campus to the airport (the Tufts Observer counted ten limousines for her entourage), Marian Christy of the Boston Globe, in an October 28, 1977 report, wrote that scores of demonstrators, “students and Filipino expatriates,” were shouting, “Marcos go home! Marcos go home!”

Another report from the Boston Globe estimated the number of demonstrators at about a hundred that included members of the faculty. The newspaper managed to get the reaction of Eugenio Lopez Jr., who had just settled in Boston after his daring escape from a Marcos prison with Sergio Osmeña III on October 1, 1977.

Lopez told the Boston Globe that he “cannot understand how a prestigious university like Tufts can award a plaque for humanitarianism when, in fact, she and her husband have done nothing but debase the humanity of the Filipinos.” He added that the endowment had been “expropriated by blackmail from the people and I would say that this is blackmail money that she has given Tufts University.”

Lopez’s criticism was echoed by the Tufts Observer’s  editorial in its October 28, 1977 issue. “The grant, given yesterday by Imelda Marcos, wife of the dictator of the Philippines, comes from gifts of private citizens and corporations in the Philippines. It is these people who have profited from Marcos imposition of martial law on the island, from imprisonment of over 20,000 persons for political dissidence, from the suppression of political parties, and basic civil and constitutional rights. Justice is granted by military tribunals and freedoms of the press, speech, and assembly are virtually nonexistent.”

In soliciting and accepting the grant, “Tufts officially condones the actions of Marcos by not rejecting the grant. The object of the grant from the foundation’s point of view is to bolster the reputation of Marcos throughout the world. By taking the money, therefore, Tufts tacitly publicizes Marcos as a generous human being, a side of his personality he has rarely shown to his own citizens.”

On November 5, 1977, as Imelda returned to Manila, the Tufts board of trustees approved the terms of the Marcos grant.  They consisted of an annual payment of $500,000 for three consecutive years from the inauguration of the grant and a one-time administrative fee of $75,000.

Saul A. Slapikoff of the Get Marcos Off Campus Committee and an associate professor of Tufts University, with 97 others, wrote to the Boston Globe on November 9, 1977 to denounce the acceptance of the Marcos grant. They argued that “the Ferdinand Marcos Foundation has the money to give to Tufts because the Marcos family and other wealthy Philippine families have enriched themselves by their dictatorial rule at the expense of the Philippine people.”

“We find it ironic,” Slapikoff’s group wrote, “that Tufts University, an institution purportedly committed to humane values, would accept money from the family of the Philippine dictator. This appears to be the worst sort of expediency and can only be a source of shame to the university.”

In Manila, Imelda, in her arrival statement said that she “found it opportune to be present at the formal inauguration of the Ferdinand E. Marcos Chair for East Asian and Pacific Studies at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.”

“Through this Chair, Tufts University hopes to make a more significant contribution to serious scholarship on Asia and the Pacific, and to raise the level of understanding of Asian affairs throughout the world, particularly in the United States. The Marcos Foundation has arranged to endow the Chair and support its program out of contributions from the private sector and its own.”

Imelda’s statement finally made clear that it was only the Marcos Foundation which was behind the endowment. What the Marcos Foundation can give, it can also take away—which it did.

The Fallout

The blowback from the acceptance of the Marcos Chair raged in the American press for some more months. The Tufts Observer kept track of the controversy. On December 2, 1977 it released a four-page “Marcos supplement” highlighting the university’s contrasting responses to the Marcos grant.

In the supplement, the Tufts Observer reported that “several members of the Board of Trustees indicated . . . that they voted to accept the $1.5 million grant from the Marcos Foundation without being fully or accurately informed about faculty opposition to the gift and about the political situation in the Philippines.”

Other members of the board, like its vice chairperson Warren Carley, denied this saying, “We didn’t spend a couple of weeks investigating the thing . . . I was told that there were understandable reasons for the so-called repressive activities. The Filipino government is under attack by guerillas, terrorists and communists who are trying to disrupt the government with violence . . .  I don’t think as trustees we have to resolve the tribulations of another society.”

Gullion once again issued a defense on why the Fletcher School accepted the grant. He harked back to the Thomasites in the days of America’s colonial conquest of the Philippines and on how they “laid the foundations for higher secular education in the Philippine islands,” hence the grant from the Marcos Foundation should be seen “in gratitude and token repayment of a spiritual obligation.” He added that there were “no strings to this gift.”

Members of the faculty strongly disagreed with Gullion. Peter Dreier, an associate professor of sociology, asked: “If the Fletcher School appoints a scholar critical of the Marcos Regime, will installments two and three ever arrive? Isn’t this method of allocating the $1.5 million a subtle ‘string?’”

“Tufts University,” he continued, “by actively seeking out and then accepting the Marcos Foundation money has lent its name and prestige to a dictator trying to wash his bloody hands and bolster his image with philanthropy.” Dreier called on the leadership of Tufts University to “rescind the ‘citation for distinction’ [given to Imelda]. Return the Marcos Foundation money.”

The Tufts Observer Marcos supplement also reproduced in full the Daily Express report mentioned earlier. But instead of the original headline, “US school opens special FM Chair,” it became “Demonstrators called ‘pickets-for-hire’.”

Included was a copy of a letter that Sergio Osmeña III and Eugenio Lopez Jr. wrote to the dean of the Harvard Business School. In condemning the acceptance of the Marcos grant, they pointed to the “widely known fact that Mr. and Mrs. Marcos have enriched themselves while in public office through corruption and extortion. One can only conclude that what was given to Tufts on the pretext of philanthropy was in fact ‘blood money’ of the Filipino people.”

A month later, on January 20, 1978, the Tufts Observer gave an update on the controversy that by then had spilled over to the broader national U.S. media.

It reprinted the December 18, 1977 lead editorial of the New York Times criticizing Tufts.   It read: “The proposed chair is to honor and bear the name of a man whose values no university should honor, certainly not with his money during his lifetime. What the university is here selling became instantly clear when Mrs. Marcos came to deliver the money and received a university citation honoring her for ‘deep [humane] concern’.”

On December 29, 1977, a column in the Washington Post by Hobart Rowen verged on the grotesque when it suggested that Tufts’s fawning attitude towards the conjugal dictators in contrast to the “oppression, poverty, and slums” in the Philippines, was “enough to make anyone who knows the Philippines . . . throw up.”

Responses from university officials and other scholars, for or against the Marcos grant, continued to eat up space in various publications all throughout 1978. Then the debate died. It seemed everybody but Marcos had just been had.

The Dissolution

On November 9, 1978 the AP broke the story that Marcos was “four months past due on paying a $500,000 installment” for the chair. AP quoted Harry Zane, Tufts director of public information, as saying that Marcos’s people “were unable to get the money together.” Hence, no money, no Ferdinand E. Marcos Chair of East Asian and Pacific Affairs.

A November 10, 1978 report in the Tufts Observer, citing information from Zane, stated that the “Marcos Foundation sent $75,000 in place of interest on the entire $1.5 million promised, bringing the total already paid to $150,000 . . . The foundation paid a similar $75,000 in 1977.”

Unsigned copy of the December 20, 1979 letter to Mr. Rolando C. Gapud, senior executive vice president, Bancom Development Corporation from Jeffrey A. Sheehan, assistant dean, The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. Roll 171, images 141-42, PCGG Digitized Files.

A year later, on November 19, 1979, Rolando C. Gapud, senior executive vice president of Bancom Development Corporation and executive director of the Marcos Foundation, wrote to Jeffrey A. Sheehan, assistant dean at Fletcher School, that the Marcos Foundation would be unable to honor the full amount of the grant. The $500,000.00 due for the first year of the Marcos Chair plus $50,000.00 was all the Fletcher School would receive.

In Sheehan’s reply to Gapud on December 20, 1979, he enumerated the points that they had agreed on in their previous conversations.

First, the reason why the Marcos Foundation was reneging on its commitment:

“You have fully briefed and disclosed to me the tax and regulatory problems which the Foundation now faces. As indicated to me, this will prohibit the Foundation from soliciting further donations at this time to fund your commitment to us. Thus, the foundation may have to stop its solicitations, which to date amount to over $500,000.”

There was money enough to fund the second year of the Marcos Chair but the Fletcher School would not receive any of it.

The second and third points were all about saving face as it was agreed that the endowment would be dissolved.

Sheehan agreed that “there would be no announcement of your current inability to fund the remaining commitment to complete the requirements for the Chair.” And if by “the middle of 1980, if you are still inhibited from further solicitations, you will propose to Tufts University that the Marcos Foundation be released from any further commitments and that the Chair be transformed into an alternative use to be determined at that time.”

Before this discussion towards dissolution between Sheehan and Gapud, a curious news article appeared in theTufts Observer with this headline: “Marcos grant paid; bonus for patience.”

“Philippine President Ferdinand E. Marcos personally delivered a check for $2.5 million to the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy Tuesday afternoon, according to Assistant Fletcher Dean Jeff Sheehan. Sheehan said that Marcos entered his office disguised as a delivery boy from a bakery and nonchalantly withdrew the check from a seven-layer fudge ripple cake.”

It was Tufts Observer’s April Fools’ Day edition.

Finally, in January 1981, in an announcement well circulated in the U.S. media, Tufts University announced that there would be no academic chair in the Fletcher School named after Marcos since he failed to produce the $1 million necessary to complete the $1.5 million pledge to the university.

In a post-Edsa inventory of Malacañang by the Presidential Commission on Good Government, there is an item listed, M02-0176-1A1: Plaque for IRM [Imelda Romualdez Marcos] in a plastic frame from Tufts University.

At least Imelda got a plaque in a plastic frame. Ferdinand never got his chair.

Ilocos Norte governor gets P100M for failed tomato venture founded by uncle, President Marcos
Posted on by diktaduraadmin

Originally published by Vera Files on July 15, 2022

It was Ilocos Norte Governor Matthew Manotoc, nephew of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. who revealed it.

In a July 6, 2022 press conference in Laoag City,  the son of Sen. Imee Marcos announced that the Department of Agriculture (DA), headed by his uncle, the President, had approved the release of P100 million to revive a tomato processing plant in his province. He said that tomato growers who supply their products to Northern Foods Corporation (NFC) could resume planting as soon as the new management took over.

“We have the P100 million from DA for our tomato processing plant. And then sana ma-reactivate na rin ‘yung NFC, na nandun pa. Yeah, privatized na po,” he was quoted as saying in a report of the Philippine News Agency (PNA) the following day with the headline “DA to revive tomato processing plant in Ilocos Norte.

“We’re looking for an investor there,” Manotoc said,

The move reversed Memorandum Order No. 58 of former president Rodrigo Duterte abolishing the NFC on December 1, 2021 for “incurring annual net losses, except in the years 1989, 1995, and 2010.”  The Memorandum called for the “liquidation of assets and settlement of liabilities” of the NFC.

The government-run PNA made no mention of the role played by President Marcos, who has been in power for barely two weeks, in the founding years of the NFC.

Memorandum for the President from the Governor of Ilocos Norte, 22 March 1984 by VERA Files on Scribd

On March 21, 1984, then Ilocos Norte governor Marcos, sent a memorandum to his mother, Imelda, who was minister of human settlements. The document contained a detailed proposal for the founding of a “food and vegetable processing plant and hybrid seed production” in his province, which would become the NFC. The company was registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission on March 16, 1984, just five days before Marcos Jr. wrote to the First Lady.

The same memo was sent to Marcos’ father, the country’s president, a day later, on March 22, 1984, asking for immediate approval and the release of funds for the project.

Based on the document, the idea for the project was not entirely that of the presidential son who attributed it to Agriman Consultants, “an agribusiness firm with several joint venture activities with the Ministry of Human Settlements (MHS)and Philippine Packing Corporation (Del Monte).”

Marcos Jr. wrote that “upon the request and encouragement of the Provincial Government, [Agriman Consultants] set up an experimental tomato hybrid project in Bacarra, Ilocos Norte. The project was adjudged a success by Del Monte.”

“In view of the favorable results,” the memo went on, “Agriman is now proposing to undertake an integrated food and vegetable production and processing project in the province similar to the PPC/Del Monte Bukidnon facility.”

The son told Imelda that aside from the income, the project would also generate “new jobs and business opportunities.”

“Being the first large scale processing on industrial facility in Ilocos Norte and Northwestern Luzon, it is a concrete manifestation of the wisdom of the President’s and the First Lady’s program of industrial dispersal and rural mobilization,” Marcos Jr. pointed out, adding that it would be “a prestige project of the Governor and the President.”

According to his estimate, the project’s total cost would be P110 million, with financing from a combination of public funds, private loans and investments as detailed in the memorandum:

SourcesAmount (in P million)
Commercial bank loans for inventory financing (commitments from City Trust and other banks have been secured)30
KKK-PCA investment in preferred shares in Northern Foods Corporation (the venture corporation) bearing 12% annual dividend69
KKK-PCA investment in common shares0.49
Private group investment in common shares0.51
Sub-Total100
Plus KKK production loans10

Executive Order No. 715, signed by Marcos Sr. on August 6, 1981, recognized the Kilusang Kabuhayan at Kaunlaran (KKK) “as a nationwide movement to mobilize such local resources for the establishment of viable productive enterprises that would provide sources of livelihood within the community, and thus make social justice a real part of day-to-day life.” As such, KKK was declared “a government priority program.”

Marcos Sr. headed KKK’s governing body, but made the MHS  under his wife its secretariat and implementing agency.

The KKK-Processing Center Authority (PCA) was formed by virtue of Marcos Sr.’s Executive Order No. 866, signed January 11, 1983. The PCA was intended to be KKK’s corporate implementing agency tasked foremost to form, finance, and coordinate regional agro-industrial processing areas.  Again, Marcos appointed Imelda to head PCA’s governing body as MHS minister.

KKK-PCA was supposed to have P1 billion as capitalization with an initial operating budget of P300 million drawn from the Treasury when it was formed in 1983 after which its budget was included in the General Appropriations Act.

In his 2014 biography of Cesar Virata, Marcos Sr.’s prime minister, Gerardo P. Sicat, the chief economic planning officer, wrote that the MHS “began dipping into almost every type of program imaginable, creating high-profile action programs for the First Lady to associate herself with.”

“Soon,” he continued, “the ministry was conducting a housing program, then a livelihood and educational training program, all absorbing new funds coming from other units of the government.”

Sicat stated the obvious when he wrote that Imelda’s clout and that of the MHS rested on her influence on her powerful husband.

“Thus, she had the advantage of getting whatever she wanted, as long as the president would agree to it. While the other ministers had to see him in office, write memos, or plea for their case, Mrs. Marcos could see the president at any time, in whatever situation within the household (which was Malacañang),” he explained.

Marcos Jr., on the other hand, sent out memos to his mother and father. On June 11, 1984, the son asked the president for “an additional equity infusion of P50 million and a loan of P10 million at favorable interest rates” to make the NFC viable and operational by December of that year.

Memorandum for the President from the Governor of Ilocos Norte, 11 June 1984 by VERA Files on Scribd


Marcos Jr. made no mention of the financing which was supposed to be drawn from the private sector, except that of Agriman Consultants, that he indicated in his approved proposal to Imelda just three months earlier.

The request was in addition to the P36 million that KKK-PCA allocated as initial equity investment and a P34 million “expected loan,” which was thought to be sufficient to put up and run the NFC.

But by June, Marcos Jr. said the P70 million was inadequate given “recent developments specially the high cost of money” and NFC was in “imminent danger that . . . may not be undertaken at all.”

He told his father that NFC’s “successful implementation will definitely be a legacy which our province mates will long remember and cherish.”

On June 28, 1984, the father indulged his son and issued a memorandum instructing his wife “to allocate the amount of P60 million from the KKK-PCA or any of the subsidiaries of the Ministry as an additional equity investment” in NFC.

P130 million of public funds were then committed to the NFC.

On July 23, 1984, Marcos Jr. as governor of Ilocos Norte, leased to the NFC for 25 years some 4.3 hectares of land in San Joaquin, Sarrat, Ilocos Norte. NFC’s tomato processing plant was up and running on the land by October 1984.

Rafael C. Ignacio, in a chapter on Social Entrepreneurship and Enterprise Development (Asian Institute of Management, 1994), mentioned that Marcos Sr. was present at the inauguration along with United States ambassador Stephen Bosworth.

Also present were top executives of Agriman Consultants: “Mr. Alejandro [Sandy] V. Daza, president; John P. Perrine, executive vice president; and, Atty. Manuel S. Tayag, vice president. Mr. Daza was one of the closest friends and associates of Governor Marcos.  Mr. Perrine was the son of an American top executive of Philippine Packing Corporation-Del Monte (PPC-Del Monte).”

Agriman Consultants bagged the contract to manage the NFC. Governor Marcos Jr. had seat at the table as one of the seven members of the company’s board of directors. The original investment package for the NFC reserved 1% of the Class C-Common Shares for the governor, hence the lone C seat. He The governor of the province remained a member of the NFC board until its closure last December.

It seemed all was set for a great agribusiness venture in Ilocos Norte.

But three years after operations began, “there were a number of employees scrounging around the plant premises for pieces of junk copper wires and other scrap metals. They were to sell whatever they found to the scrap traders in Laoag City to generate some cash to pay a part of their salary while their top people were coming and going in chartered planes,” according to Ignacio, quoting Mike Regino, NFC finance manager in the late ‘80s.

The losses were such that, according to Ignacio, “despite the superior technology and a noticeable increase in farmers’ participation, Northern Foods Corporation, however, remained in the red throughout the Agriman era. As of May 31, 1986, NFC’s equity base had shrunk to a level of P69.987 million from an initial amount of P104.545 million.”

Esteban N. Pagaran, in a chapter he wrote in Ground Level Development: NGOs, Co-operatives and Local Organizations in the Third World published (Lund University, 1994) made a negative appraisal of Agriman’s role in the NFC’s founding years. He wrote of how “anomalies committed by the private management firm and the high overhead expenses” resulted in “heavy company losses.”

When a new management took over NFC after the 1986 Edsa revolt, they discovered a “six-figure cash advance made by Agriman.”

More than 35 years later, in the Commission on Audit’s (COA) 2021 Annual Audit Report on the Northern Foods Corporation, there remains the entry under “receivables—non-current portion, other receivables”:

NamesParticularsAmount
Agriman Consultant, Inc.Expenses relative to the Management services it Provided NFC from May 1984 to July 31, 1987.P2,443,761.69

In the last three annual audit on the NFC (2019-2021), and maybe even in much earlier ones, COA stated that since the amount Agriman owed NFC has been “outstanding and non-moving for more than 10 years,” it was now considered part of “Dormant Receivable Accounts.”

In its 2019 Annual Audit Report on the Northern Foods Corporation, COA  advised the NFC that they could just write it off or “exert exhaustive efforts to locate original documents pertaining to the transactions” and “exert extra efforts to collect from Agriman Consulting Services.”

In the 2020 Annual Audit Report on the Northern Foods Corporation, NFC informed COA, “that Agriman Consulting, Inc. is no longer operational” and that “they were not able to locate the original documents of the said transaction.”

COA reiterated its previous recommendation that NFC should just make a formal request to write off the said amount as provided for by COA Circular 2016-005.

In 2000, NFC became part of the DA until Duterte shut it down.

A year later, COA noted in its annual audit of NFC that their previous recommendation on the matter involving Agriman was not implemented since  “management was not able to request the write-off of accounts because only photocopies are available and the original documents cannot be located.”

But now, it seems the Marcoses are not done yet with NFC.  It is unclear when President Marcos reversed Duterte’s Memo No. 58 and approved the P100 million funding to revive NFC.  But with the support of his powerful uncle, the reelected governor of Ilocos Norte is a winner twice over.

Lies and Misrepresentations in Bongbong Marcos’s BBM Vlog 148
Posted on by diktaduraadmin

Originally published by Vera Files on February 28, 2021

There are at least seven false claims, misrepresentations or elements requiring context in Bongbong Marcos’s latest vlog, BBM Vlog 148, titled “Bringing Back Transparency to the Election System” posted after the Supreme Court (SC), sitting as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET), dismissed Marcos’ protest of Vice President Leni Robredo’s victory last Feb. 16.

Contentwise, Marcos’s Vlog 148 it is a revised version of his Vlog 145, “Hybrid Election System for 2022,” which was uploaded on January 30, 2021. The “new” entry adds a title card, portions—largely from trailers, it seems—of the 2020 HBO documentary Kill Chain: The Cyber War on America’s Elections, and other additional visuals, such as a list of updates regarding the hybrid election bills filed in Congress. Marcos did not record new material for BBM Vlog 148.

These are the vlog’s false claims or misleading contents:

1. The vlog’s title card states that the Tribunal’s announcement on February 16 concerned only “the dismissal of the recount,” not Marcos’s third cause of action (the annulment of votes due to alleged fraud in three provinces in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, or BARMM). This claim—initially made by Marcos’s lawyer Vic Rodriguez, in a statement dated February 16, 2021 and released via social media—has been debunked numerous times over the last few days by the SC spokesperson Brian Hosaka (by stating in a press briefer that the “entire electoral protest” of Marcos had been junked), Chief Justice Diosdado Peralta, and independent fact-checkers.

2. Marcos says, “sa 227 na bansa sa mundo na nagkakaeleksyon, 209 ang gumagamit ng manual voting” (in 227 countries in the world where elections are held, 209 use manual voting). This is different from what appears in the animated text accompanying Marcos’s narration: “209 out of 227 countries still use paper ballots.”

Based on the likely sources of these numbers, the latter is the factual statement. The vlog does not disclose the source for these seemingly similar but significantly different statements, but they were most likely quoting an October 30, 2020 article uploaded on the Pew Research Center website titled “From Voter Registration to Mail-in Ballots, How Do Countries Around the World Run Their Elections?” There, one will find this sentence: “Votes are cast by manually marking ballots in 209 of the 227 countries and territories for which the ACE Electoral Knowledge Network has data.” A link is provided in the article to the website of the ACE Electoral Knowledge Network (https://aceproject.org/), where one can generate the following map showing the 209 countries that manually mark ballots:

Source: ACE Electoral Knowledge Network

Unlike what Marcos is insinuating, the Philippines is in fact clearly among the 209 countries that still mark ballots manually, as opposed to using online or e-voting or direct recording electronic voting machines. The Philippines does not use “completely/purely electronic voting,” a phrase that Marcos repeatedly uses in his vlog.

3. Marcos’s vlog suggests that “manual voting” excludes voting that uses paper ballots but counts votes electronically, i.e., the system currently used in the Philippines. Again, the ACE Electoral Knowledge Network (https://aceproject.org/epic-en/CDCountry?country=PH) describes the Philippines as a country wherein voters manually mark ballots and use electronic voting machines.

4. To further bolster his partial de-automation advocacy, in the vlog, Marcos claims that some countries are discarding automation, returning to manual processes. This is true. However, among the accompanying news articles that the vlog shows while Marcos is talking, only one, “Fearful of Hacking, Dutch will Count Ballots by Hand” published by the New York Times recalls the Philippine case. The rest are about online or direct electronic entry elections.

Marcos quotes from an article regarding elections in Finland, stating that it is about “completely electronic elections.” “Sabi nila yung risks ay masyadong malaki para sa benefits” (They say that the risks far outweigh the benefits), Marcos says. However, the article is about a very particular form of automated elections: online voting. Even the highlighted text from the article—titled “Security Fears Delay Roll-out of National E-voting in Finland,” which first appeared on Computer Weekly—that Marcos is supposedly quoting from only talks about online voting: “‘Our present position is that online voting should not be introduced in general elections as the risks are greater than the benefits,’ said [Johanna] Suurpää [chair of the e-voting working group of Finland’s Ministry of Justice].”

The Philippines has never utilized any form of direct electronic vote entry or online voting for national or local elections.

5. Marcos says, “Nung 2013 ay nasa 76% lamang ang boto na natransmit o nabilang” (in 2013, only 76% of the votes were transmitted or counted). Again, this does not tie up completely with the text being flashed on screen: “[in 2013,] only 76% of the votes were transmitted.” By adding the word “nabilang,” Marcos is stating that votes that were not transmitted were not counted at all, effectively disenfranchising (hundreds of) thousands of voters. However, according to former Smartmatic lawyer (later two-time Duterte appointee) Karen Jimeno and the Comelec, votes that are not transmitted are still counted because the SD cards where the votes are recorded will be physically delivered to canvassing centers. The Center for People Empowerment in Governance (CENPEG) confirms that these contingency measures have indeed been in place since the first automated elections in the Philippines in 2010, though it noted that there were cases wherein such physical transportation lacked security measures.

Marcos also highlighted the 961 defective vote-counting machines and 1,000 SD cards that needed replacement during the 2019 elections. He did not mention what was widely reported: the defective machines were also replaced.

6. After discussing the glitches in other automated elections in the Philippines, Marcos says, “At naman nung 2016 ay siguro alam na natin ang nangyari” (And then in 2016 we suppose we know what happened), implying that he was a victim of the flaws of and fraud in the election system. In BBM Vlog 145, he said this without any related visuals.

In Vlog 148, this statement is followed by a quick flash of a claim posted on Facebook showing two partial and unofficial results purportedly of a barangay in BARMM where Leni Robredo was the only vice presidential candidate to receive votes, followed by brief flashes of what seem to be photographs of the wet/damaged ballots and ballot boxes that were found when the ballots in the three provinces identified by Marcos were undergoing revision.

Regarding the Facebook post, besides the pictures showing only partial and unofficial results, it is not proven how getting zero votes in a barangay is an indication of fraud. A Rappler article dated May 17, 2016 pointed out that based on partial unofficial results, there were more zero-Robredo vote precincts than zero-Marcos vote precincts, and Marcos “got more votes from precincts that gave Robredo zero votes.” Considering the 2019 senatorial election results, which have not been formally contested, it is also not unimaginable that in several areas in Mindanao, members of the Marcos family are unpopular among voters. Among the three provinces that are contemplated in Marcos’s third cause of action, based on the partial and unofficial results of the 2019 elections, Imee Marcos entered the “magic 12” in only one: Basilan. In Maguindanao, Imee placed 13th, and in Lanao Del Sur, she placed 17th.

Regarding the wet ballots, on pages 42-43 of the October 15, 2019 resolution of the PET on Marcos’s protest, one will find the following: “In the course of the revision [of ballots], the Tribunal observed that the paper ballots in several clustered precincts were wet and unreadable, or their integrity was compromised such that it rendered revision using paper ballots impossible. For these clustered precincts, the Tribunal directed the use of the decrypted ballot images provided by the COMELEC for purposes of revision. The parties registered their claims and objections thereto.” The PET then found that there were no decrypted ballot images for three clustered precincts, and thus excluded them from the revision. However, when added up, the total votes in these precincts were only 910 votes.When the revision was completed—disregarding the wet ballots issue when decrypted ballot images were available—according to the PET, the lead of Robredo over Marcos increased from 263,473 to 278,566 votes.

7. Finally, in the first minute of the video, Marcos says, “Ang sinasabi, yung manual counting ay masyado raw matatagalan. Hindi po totoo ‘yan. Hindi po ito mas matagal kaysa purely electronic na voting” (They say that manual counting takes too long. That’s not true. It’s not true that it takes longer than that in purely electronic voting). Later on, Marcos claims that the manual counting of the votes in a (clustered) precinct, or about 600-800 votes, may be done within 1-2 hours.

This is impossible; in a ballot during a presidential election year, one will have to vote for a president, a vice president, twelve senators, a district congressional representative, a partylist, and local government positions (e.g., governor and vice governor and/or mayor and vice mayor and provincial board members and/or municipal/city council members). During midterm elections, the only positions absent from the ballots are president and vice president. Reading and manually recording the votes in one ballot and verifying if the ballot was appreciated correctly, to the satisfaction of all precinct poll watchers, will obviously take much longer than a few seconds (800 ballots counted in two hours means around 6-7 ballots counted per minute).

Moreover, according to a 2004 document titled “CEPPS Philippines Election Observation Program – Strengthening the Electoral Process” by Peter Erben, Beverly Hagerdon Thakur, Craig Jenness, and Ian Smith of the International Foundation for Electoral Systems, available at the ACE Project website, before automation, “an average of 20 votes were counted per hour with each precinct counting approximately 200 ballots.”

Marcos—or his vlog’s scriptwriters—may have misunderstood what hybrid election system advocate Gus Lagman said regarding his projected timeframes. Lagman, in an article dated March 13, 2013, titled “Does Smartmatic’s PCOS Add Value or Problems to our Elections?” posted at The Movement for Good Governance website, “manual precinct counting only takes 5-12 hours.” According to Lagman, it’s the “printing, the visual checking, the re-encoding, and the iteration” of the steps of transmitting PC/laptop encoded election returns—done after counting—that “might take 1-2 hours.” When Lagman’s proposed Patas system was tested in Bacoor, Cavite on June 27, 2015, multiple news outlets reported that only 20 ballots, covering only the votes for national positions, were counted in 41 minutes.

The system proposed by the Marcos siblings bear similarities to Lagman’s PATAS system. According to then Election Commissioner Christian Robert Lim, as discussed in a Philippine Daily Inquirer article dated July 10, 2015, “Patas’ manual procedure is time-consuming, taxing and prone to human error.”

Perhaps, given all of the above, the eighth misrepresentation in the vlog is Marcos appearing to know what he is talking about.

The vlog strongly suggests that Marcos lost only because of fraud and a flawed system. He notes that the youth are apparently losing interest in elections, claiming that he believes this to be largely due to the defective election system. For visual support, the vlog flashes an article titled “Philippine Youth Losing Faith in Political System.”

The article, posted in the Deutsche Welle website, in fact highlights youth being disheartened by the loss of opposition senatorial candidates in 2019 to candidates such as “a former dictator’s daughter,” i.e., Imee Marcos. Another accompanying visual is a screenshot of the results of a survey which asked one multiple choice question: “Bakit hindi ka pa nagpaparehistro?” The majority in this survey indeed answered “Walang Tiwala Sa Sistema” (No trust in the system). But despite bearing what looks like an infographic with the Comelec logo, it does not appear to have any connection to the election agency. The full survey results, which can be viewed here, indicates that the survey was conducted online between February 6 and February 12, and had only 626 respondents, and restricted responses to three: besides “Walang Tiwala sa Sistema,” one could answer with “Covid, Takot Pa Lumabas” (Covid, scared of going outside) or “Hindi Ko Alam Paano” (I don’t know how [to register]). But the mismatched visual and the clearly unscientific survey may be excused in this instance, since Marcos couched his claims about the youth losing enthusiasm in elections as opinion rather than fact—something Marcos should have done for several other claims in his vlog.

Marines tout the Bongbong rockets that went bust during Marcos Sr.’s regime
Posted on by diktaduraadmin

Originally published by Vera Files on June 10, 2024

When journalists first heard about the Bongbong rockets in March 1972, they thought it was just another government scam. As retold by the journalist Lee Lescaze, then President Ferdinand Marcos Sr.’s press secretary Francisco “Kit” Tatad made this announcement to the Malacañang press corps:

We have launched successfully our first rocket.”

“What is it this time?” a newsman asked. “We have had many rackets before.”

“It is not a racket but a rocket.” Tatad said.

Fifty-two years later, a new racket on the rocket is on the rise again.

Continuing territorial tensions with China have spurred the re-circulation of claims about the rocket development program under Marcos Sr. Encountering material on the Bongbong rockets is not that difficult. Besides the usual pro-Marcos YouTube videos (including this, uploaded on May 30, 2024, with over 23,000 views as of this writing), Marcos supporter tweets, and videos sharing Senator Imee Marcos’s half-truths about her father’s Self-Reliance Defense Posture (SRDP) program (such as this, uploaded in June 3, and shared over 560 times), one can find a recently opened permanent exhibit extolling the Bongbong rocket program, which is much more accessible than the rocket on display at the Philippine Navy Museum in Cavite.

On January 30, 2024, the 4th Marine “Makusug” Brigade inaugurated the Military Park in Camp Cape Bojeador in Burgos, Ilocos Norte. A Daily Tribune article noted that by March 7, 2024, the “military tourism” park had already received over 21,000 visitors. A May 6, 2024 ABS-CBN Facebook post showed that the attraction continued to be well-patronized. Located near the national highway, one can pass by the Military Park on the way up to visit other popular tourist destinations: the Cape Bojeador Lighthouse, the Burgos and Bangui Windmills, and the Patapat Viaduct. It is already in the itineraries of several Ilocos Norte tour organizers.

Pictures of the Inauguration of the Military Park in Camp Cape Bojeador, Burgos Ilocos Norte, from the Facebook page of the 4th Marine Brigade. 2/2

Pictures of the Inauguration of the Military Park in Camp Cape Bojeador, Burgos Ilocos Norte, from the Facebook page of the 4th Marine Brigade. 1/2

Pictures of the Inauguration of the Military Park in Camp Cape Bojeador, Burgos Ilocos Norte, from the Facebook page of the 4th Marine Brigade. 2/2

Pictures of the Inauguration of the Military Park in Camp Cape Bojeador, Burgos Ilocos Norte, from the Facebook page of the 4th Marine Brigade.

Based on the Facebook posts of some of the park visitors, one of the exhibits there is a replica of a Bongbong rocket launch vehicle. Part of the exhibit description reads:

This exhibit showcases a replica of a rocket integral to the Philippine military’s venture into developing its ballistic missiles. The initiative unfolded through the collaborative efforts of Filipino and German engineers and scientists, in partnership with the Philippine Navy under Project Santa Barbara of the Self-Reliance Defense Posture (SRDP) program in the 1970s. The rocket earned its moniker, “Bongbong Rocket” in honor of the then President Ferdinand E. Marcos’ son, Ferdinand “Bongbong” R. Marcos Jr, the 17th President of the Republic of the Philippines . . . Despite the promising advancements, the project was discontinued totally in 1986. Nevertheless, the innovative spirit that fueled this endeavor lives on. And the project’s enduring legacy stands as a testament to its positive impact on the Philippine military’s capability for technological advancements and scientific explorations.

Why project was named Sta. Barbara

The text calls the first launch “successful” and “triumphant.” SRDP proponents like Imee and Senator Bato de la Rosa say pretty much the same thing. Many have already attempted to explain—briefly, in fact-check format—how the country’s homegrown missile program was hardly the first within the region or was a resounding success. Most online articles state that the missile program was codenamed “Project Sta. Barbara”—patron saint of artillerymen.

Launch tests were conducted in the 1970s; and the program, for unclear reasons, was discontinued. Some writers simply state that the discontinuance was a mystery or that the project’s details remain classified. Sources partial to the Marcoses claim or allude, like the Burgos exhibit text, that the project only ended after the fall of the Marcos regime in February 1986.

Bob Couttie, a historian, wrote a detailed description of the project, using declassified US Department of State cables among his primary sources. His blog post “Marcos’s Roman Candle Superweapons,” a version of which also appears as a chapter in his last book Fool’s Gold, largely tackles the entirely false claim that the Marcos regime successfully developed “anti-typhoon” rockets, before detailing why Project Sta. Barbara never produced what could be legitimately referred to as “ballistic missiles”: lack of funding, as well as the absence of support from the country’s eternal ally, the United States. But Couttie was unable to fill in a number of blanks regarding the rocket program using his sources: Who were the scientists involved? How many tests have extant documentation? How far in terms of technological advancement did the program reach? Did it really end because of Cory Aquino?

Most of these can now be better answered using recently accessible primary sources, some of which were marked “classified” or “secret” decades ago.

The president’s rocket men

If his February 13, 1971 diary entry were to be believed, Marcos Sr. was not even keen on having a missile system. The Israelis were hawking their Gabriel weapons system then. Marcos Sr. was thinking of something else.

“Saw the Israeli film on the demonstration of their Gabriel weapons system . . . what we really need is not a missile system for the Navy but airfields for our jet fighters in Zamboanga, Davao, Cagayan de Oro and Laoag and Legaspi in Luzon. Our fighters are now armed with missiles,” Bongbong’s father said.

Nine months later, he changed his mind. Marcos-supported rocket research appears to have started on November 21, 1971. On that date, Marcos met with a foreign physicist, Dr. Max Goldberger, to discuss the latter’s proposal for “catalytic research.” Also in attendance were National Science Development Board (NSDB) chairman Florencio A. Medina, a retired brigadier general of the Philippine Army. According to a confidential report written by Medina, transmitted to Marcos on December 4, 1971, further discussions with Goldberger were held with other government officials, including other persons from the NSDB and Executive Secretary Alejandro Melchor. It was Melchor, a US Naval Academy graduate, who suggested that a “production laboratory” for the implementation of Dr. Goldberger’s proposal could be set up in “one of the vacant hangars at Sangley Point,” while the “machine shops of the Philippine Navy at Cavite City” could be one of the “supporting facilities for tooling.” Goldberger found these facilities to be adequate.

Florencio Medina’s Report on Dr. Max Goldberger’s Proposal for Catalytic Research by Verafiles Newsroom on Scribd

By the time Goldberger first met Marcos, he was listed as an inventor in a number of patents or patent applications assigned to Pioneer Research, Inc.” A news article in the February 1970 issue of the Manchester [Connecticut] Evening Herald describes Goldberger as the director of research and company vice president of Pioneer, which had developed a 100-watt commercial model of a hydrazine fuel cell. Goldberger also made the news in the 1960s for his propulsion experiments. One news article, from the Associated Press, talks about a November 1965 attempt by Goldberger to launch a rocket in Long Island, Connecticut. Goldberger and his team initially thought there was an “ignition failure,” but as they were packing up, “someone accidentally tripped the faulty ignition and the rocket shot 500 feet up,” which made Goldberger say that the “rocket’s performance…was a ‘ballistic success.’”

In the cover letter of his December 1971 report, Medina recommended pushing through with Goldberger’s proposal, committing the NSDB to collaborate closely with the foreign scientist. Medina said that the proposed program “is a laudible [sic] undertaking as it will introduce into the country at very minimal cost the basic techniques of rocket propulsion and of fuel cells which have paramount impact in both their civilian and military applications.” He stated that the initial expenditure may be USD 10-20 thousand, or PHP 66-132 thousand, or slightly more than 1-2 years of the president’s salary. Medina also emphasized that Goldberger offered his services “free of charge.” Marcos immediately approved the proposal.

Before publicizing their rocket research, the Marcos government first informed the United States of their missile plans. On December 13, 1971, Gen.Manuel Yan, Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, gave a presentation on “The Attainment of a Self-Reliant Defense Posture” during the 71-12 Mutual Defense Board Meeting at Camp Aguinaldo. Among those in attendance were Marcos, US Ambassador Henry Byroade, foreign affairs secretary Carlos P. Romulo, and US Admiral John S. McCain Jr. In his speech, which gave a “detailed presentation of our plan to attain [a self-reliant defense] posture with the assistance from our allies, particularly the United States,” Yan said,

The importance of an indigenous capability to produce explosives and propellants may not readily be apparent . . . But the other important objective is the development of rockets and missiles . . . In essence, mastery in the production of explosives and propellants is the key to the attainment of a strategic power of deterrence.

In his diary entry for December 14, 1971, Marcos Sr. wrote that he “ordered the rocket research and experiments of Dr. Max Goldberger to be started.” Marcos Sr., also said that he will “fund [the research] with the Intelligence Funds at [his] disposal.” Unverifiable claims would later be made that the rockets were funded with money from the Marcos Foundation, where he falsely claimed to have deposited all of his wealth.

Marcos Sr., in his diary entry for December 28, 1971, mentioned that he had dinner with Goldberger, congressman Antonio Raquiza, and an Alex Rothchild. He noted that Goldberger was “married to an Ilocana niece” of Raquiza, a close Marcos ally, which may account for Goldberger’s initial access to Marcos.

Bongbong rocket lift-offs—and letdowns

The first known rocket launch took place on March 12, 1972. The Burgos exhibit text echoes some of the reportage on that launch, including Melchor’s claim that the Bongbong rocket was built in only twenty-one days. If that is factual, then construction of the rocket would have started in late February 1972, or more than two months after Marcos approved the Medina-endorsed Goldberger proposal. Based on his diaries, Marcos met with Goldberger on February 12, 1972, “for our experiments and research on guided missiles and chemically powered batteries.”

What was launched in March 1972 was called “Bongbong II”; it is unclear what happened to Bongbong I, if there was one. Reports about the launch that were released soon after it took place include one from UPI, which stated that, based on Malacanang sources, “the Philippines has successfully launched its first home-made rocket secretly.” It also stated that Marcos had shown his cabinet “a 30-minute film of the launching from Caballo Island near Corregidor Island at the mouth of Manila Bay and the rocket being retrieved by the Armed Forces in the South China Sea.”

The article by Lee Lescaze on the launch, which quoted Tatad’s exchanges with the press, was well syndicated in US newspapers such as the Los Angeles Times. It was published between August-September 1972—several months after Bongbong II lifted off. The article included numerous details about the launch and Bongbong II itself—purportedly, it cost “only” USD 3,250.00 (about PHP 22,000.00), was eight feet long and six inches in diameter, and was hand-fed into a launcher made from “a piece of pipe found in a junkyard in Manila’s Chinatown.”

Marcos supposedly flew to Caballo to witness the launch, even after he was told that the chance of success was only 60 percent. It did seem that the launch was going to fail; reminiscent of Goldberger’s 1965 test in Connecticut, Lescaze said, “The range officer began his countdown, but at zero, Bong-Bong II remained on the pad. Flustered, he began counting and at ‘two,’ the rocket took off.”

Lescaze’s article quotes Melchor several times; the executive secretary was referred to as the “father of the Philippine rocket program.” Goldberger is not mentioned in the article at all. Interestingly—and not entirely in agreement with accessible primary sources—the article claimed that the project was “the result of a secret crash program by a group of Filipino scientists who had set out to design a windmill and then realized they had a rocket within their grasp.” Toward its conclusion, the article noted that “the missile budget has been cut in half as part of government austerity efforts following July’s disastrous flooding of central Luzon. Tests are continuing at Caballo, however.”

On November 18, 1972, Melchor asked for clearance to launch another liquid-propellant rocket, Bongbong III, on December 2 that year. Besides “maintaining the momentum” of the rocket project, Melchor also hoped that the test would help them explore the “possible rain-making application of the rockets,” i.e., sending up a “vehicle which will carry a payload of silver iodide to a desired altitude,” and to “acquire experience in the use of hydrazine,” “the ultimate in rocket fuel,” and to “get a feel of firing a more sophisticated and bigger rocket.” Melchor noted that “With the present control of government over media”—this was, after all, almost two months after the start of the Marcos dictatorship—”the test can be conducted with the least of fanfare, treating it just like any routine scientific and technological test.”

“Request for Clearance to Conduct Dynamic Test of 180mm Rocket at Caballo Island” from Alejandro Melchor to Ferdinand Marcos Sr., from the digitized PCGG files.
“Request for Clearance to Conduct Dynamic Test of 180mm Rocket at Caballo Island” from Alejandro Melchor to Ferdinand Marcos Sr., from the digitized PCGG files.

Epic fail

The launch failed spectacularly. Marcos wrote in his diary on December 3, 1972, “Bongbong III (the 180 mm hydrazine fueled rocket) exploded on take off at the test site in Caballo.” The report attached to the diary entry noted that “The explosion scattered the various missile components in the launching pad and buckled and broke open the seams of the heavy steel gate separating the launching pad from mission control.” The report was signed by Commodore Alfredo C. Protacio of the Philippine Navy and E.M. Terrado (“Head, Chemical Grp.”), both of Project Sta. Barbara. Throughout the rest of its existence, Project Sta. Barbara was directly under the Office of the President.

Report, “Dynamic Test of Bongbong III,” from the digitized PCGG files
Report, “Dynamic Test of Bongbong III,” from the digitized PCGG files

A June 1, 2024 Facebook post of the Naval Research and Technology Development Center states that their institution was established “in pursuit of fortifying the country’s Self-Reliant Defense Posture (SRDP) Program, specifically the Project Sta. Barbara” in 1973. An article co-authored by Terrado in the June 1974 issue of the Philippine Journal of Science discusses fuel cell research being done at the Sta. Barbara laboratories. It is thus safe to say that part of Sta. Barbara’s funds, which were not exclusively for rockets, came from the Philippine Navy.

A more successful launch was conducted on December 30, 1972, the hundredth day since the official date of Marcos’s martial law declaration.The day before, Melchor sent a message informing Marcos that he and Secretary of National Defense Juan Ponce Enrile would be at Caballo for a missile test. After the test, Melchor sent a dispatch to Marcos’s presidential yacht to say that the launch of the “Bongbong 7” was successful, and that he would like the yacht to pass by Caballo so that they can salute the president. Unfortunately, the message was not received on time—the yacht was already at Sangley Point—so no post-launch salute “on the occasion of the one hundredth day anniversary of the New Society and [Marcos’s] seventh year as president” took place.

Dispatches on the Launch of Bongbong 7 by Verafiles Newsroom on Scribd

Further tests were conducted in 1973.Marcos’s May 13, 1973 diary entry states that “Our missile tests have been successful and we have a launcher on a dump truck that can be pivoted on a 360 degree and elevated up to vertical.” Several pictures of the tests conducted the day before were attached. The pictures show the launcher, called “Bukang Liwayway,” which was further labeled “SP [solid propellant] Missile Launcher” and “Missile Defense Command.”

Marcos claimed in his diary entry that the missiles showed up in the radar scopes of the helicopter and planes at the US Air Force base in Clark, Pampanga. A photo in the set shows Marcos with Melchor and Goldberger. It is unclear how many rockets were tested, but the launcher had six barrels.

From left to right: Alejandro Melchor, Max Goldberger, and Ferdinand Marcos Sr. Photo from the digitized PCGG files.
From left to right: Alejandro Melchor, Max Goldberger, and Ferdinand Marcos Sr. Photo from the digitized PCGG files.

Photos of the May 1973 rocket tests, from the digitized PCGG files. 1/4

Photos of the May 1973 rocket tests, from the digitized PCGG files. 2/4

Photos of the May 1973 rocket tests, from the digitized PCGG files. 3/4

Photos of the May 1973 rocket tests, from the digitized PCGG files. 4.4

Photos of the May 1973 rocket tests, from the digitized PCGG files.

Neither the December 1972 nor the May 1973 launches are known to have been covered by the international media.What appeared to be the Bukang Liwayway launcher, carrying six Bongbong rockets, was rolled out in the 1973 Independence Day Parade in Luneta, about a month after the May 1973 tests. Instead of Bukang Liwayway, however, the label on the launcher said “WX Modification & Research”—a reference to the program’s weather manipulation aims (WX has been an abbreviation for weather since the morse code/teletype era). Couttie explained that by the early 1970s, researchers in the US—where silver iodide weather modification experiments started in the 1940s—were already very skeptical of the efficacy of dropping or launching chemicals into clouds to weaken hurricanes.

U.S. assessment of Bongbong rocket project: overly expensive, wasteful

A declassified confidential cable from the US Department of State, dated February 6, 1974 concerns an aide memoire from Melchor about a standing request for assistance in the Philippine rocket research program, first made in October 1973. Melchor stated that the program would be a “heavy burden” on the “finances of the [Philippine] economy,” and rocket development thus far had “been met with early technical reverses primarily due to the absence of the much needed logistics support base”; he emphasized that “The critical lack of experience and a working model proved very costly and has drained heavily the meager resources appropriated for [the] endeavor.” Melchor noted that what they wanted to build was a multipurpose rocket, both for defense and for sparing the Philippines from “yearly destructions caused by the extremes of weather.”

The US ambassador, William Sullivan, recommended “modest assistance in technical package with training and advice as well as models,” but no accessible records show that any such assistance was given. US National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger believed such assistance would be going down a slippery slope: “We saw no particular problems in giving Melchor ‘exces’ Nikes [Nike-Hercules missile ‘cadavers’] as tinker toys,” but “Our feeling is that any meaningful assistance to the Philippine missile program would be overly expensive, wasteful of Philippine resources and unhelpful to the Philippines or to the USA.” In a July 3, 1974 cable, Sullivan tried to argue to give Melchor his missile cadavers, to no avail.

The next launches that made the news abroad were done in September 1975. Government issuances on the tests were, expectedly, brimming with praise. According to the September 5-11, 1975 “Official Week in Review,” on September 7, Marcos “announced that the Philippines is engaged in an experiment in the local production of ballistic missiles in pursuance to its Self-Reliance Defense Program”; “The defense of the Philippines cannot be left to alliances with other countries,” the President said as he witnessed the successful test-firing of locally produced missiles at the northern coast of Luzon….Dubbed the ‘Bongbong’ rockets, the missiles were fired some 10 to 12 kilometers into the sea from launchers mounted on a military vehicle parked along the shoreline.” A declassified US cable states that, as per Manila (government-controlled) press accounts, the rockets “went ‘roaring two kilometers into the sky.’”

An Associated Press article published in US newspapers, relying solely on Philippine government sources, said that four rockets were launched, and that the tests were witnessed by Ferdinand, Imelda Marcos, and “the couple’s two children”—possibly Irene and Bongbong, who had yet to start his failed pursuit of a bachelor’s degree in Oxford.

Americans, or at least Ambassador Sullivan, were not impressed. In a confidential cable dated September 18, 1975, the man who had overseen a secret massive bombing campaign in Laos said, “This latest launch event suggests that the local state of the art is still not much beyond the Roman candle stage (photos show no evidence of any associated guidance or other electronic gear), and that ‘our own ballistic missile’ is still on the drawing pad.”

Yet even as Marcos and his gang tried to inveigle American aid for a key component of his SRDP, in secret, he appeared to be wasting the country’s scarce foreign reserves—one of the very resources that SRDP was trying not to waste—to indulge his desire for sniper rifles.

Manuel Collantes, then acting secretary of foreign affairs, sent a memo to Marcos on October 17, 1973, that they can by then purchase from West Germany “Mauser-66 .308 sniper rifle with telescopic sight.” Marcos ordered “fifty (50) pieces of said rifle with 12, 500 rounds of ammunition . . . at the proffered cost of Deutschemarks 3,150 apiece.” With that bundle came “one piece of an especially offered auxiliary infrared mounted instruments at the cost of Deutschemarks 12, 470.” A piece fit for a despot or a king.

Secret memorandum from Manuel Collantes to Marcos Sr. on the West German Mauser-66 sniper rifle, from the digitized PCGG files
Secret memorandum from Manuel Collantes to Marcos Sr. on the West German Mauser-66 sniper rifle, from the digitized PCGG files

Bye Bye Sta. Barbara

Andrew L. Ross, in a chapter of the 1984 book Arms Production in Developing Countries, noted that “the Philippines has not developed or produced guided missiles,” but, based on the September 1975 tests, the country “has reportedly designed an artillery rocket.” “Subsequent developments” after the 1975 launches “have not been revealed,” Ross continued. In a footnote, he further added, “AFP Officers were not eager to discuss the Bongbong rocket and little is publicly known about the project.”

Indeed, there were no further reported developments on the rocket program after 1975.

Incidentally, Melchor was replaced as executive secretary in November 1974, and the office of the executive secretary was replaced by various presidential assistants beginning in December 1975. Bongbong (the person) would himself be appointed “Special Assistant to the President” in 1978. In his memoir Endless Journey, Jose T. Almonte claimed that Imelda Marcos distrusted Melchor, alleging that he was “involved in a plot to overthrow” Marcos. Melchor continued to have Marcos’s ear, however, being appointed a board member of the Development Bank of the Philippines and becoming a director of the Asian Development Bank. He had a brief stint as ambassador to Russia under Cory Aquino. He died in 2002.

As for Goldberger, no document has been found showing his continued involvement in the rocket program beyond the mid-1970s. A US Department of State cable, dated October 18, 1974 states that he was the chairman of the board and president of a Metro Manila-based firm called Advanced Technological Products, Inc., which specialized in building and fabricating “amphibian cars” and the distribution, importation, and installation of generators. The cable lists his address as Los Angeles, California. Goldberger later permanently relocated to Hawaii, where he became involved in local alternative energy development projects from the late 1980s onward. He died in 2012.

Numerous declassified United States Department of State cables show attempts by the Philippines to acquire complete missile systems from the US after 1975.According to a July 1976 cable, Enrile sent a letter to Marcos regarding a five-year AFP modernization program, which includes a wish list of defense materiel, including US-manufactured Nike Hercules and Chaparral missile systems, both with “support equipment, follow-on spares, tooling and training package.”

January 1978 cable shows that the US did not want to give the Philippines access to weapons like the Harpoon ship-to-ship missile “on policy grounds.” In October 1979, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Richard Holbrooke took a meeting with Enrile and Marcos, discussing the Harpoon. Holbrooke and Deputy Assistant Secretary Michael Armacoast tried to dissuade them from pursuing the system, explaining how prohibitively expensive it was (a later cable stated that the system cost USD 50 million). Marcos noted that their neighbors—Malaysia, Singapore, and Taiwan—had their own missile systems; the US diplomats insisted that the Philippines did not need one. Marcos and Enrile stated that they were also interested in the Israeli-made Gabriel system (the same one that Marcos was not so keen on in 1971), possibly buying it from Singapore, effectively saying they were bent on acquiring a missile system even without US assistance—not that the Philippines could afford one.

All these exchanges indicate that the Philippines did not have a functional missile system in the late 1970s, and that they tried—and failed—to acquire missile systems from abroad.

An Associated Press photograph published in the December 23, 1981 issue of the South China Morning Post is captioned “Marcos checks Bongbong…”;the full description states that the photo showed Marcos inspecting “models of Philippine-made 180-mm rockets named after his son” during Armed Forces Day, December 21. Thus, it appears that facsimiles of the rockets were trotted out during parades even in the 1980s, even if there were no more publicized tests or launches—or likely, any form of rocket research.

Project Sta. Barbara shifts from rocket to alcogas

In fact, by then, Project Sta. Barbara had shifted (back) to focusing on alternative energy sources. Between 1978 and 1982, multiple patents were granted to Commodore Protacio and other Sta. Barbara members—such as future Department of Information and Communications Technology undersecretary Eliseo Rio—related to alternative energy development, including one for a solar drier and a handful for alcogas-related methods and devices. In his 1979 State of the Nation Address, Marcos mentioned Sta. Barbara’s “alco-tipid” fuel research. An article written by Protacio, published in a 1981 issue of the Philippine Engineering Journal, states that Sta. Barbara’s alko-tipid research started in April 1979. The March 23-March 28, 1981 “Official Week in Review” mentions a charcoal-fed “hydro-gas” jeepney developed by Commodore Protacio, which was never mass produced. Sta. Barbara was also involved in a USAID-funded windmill dispersal program from 1980 to 1983.

None of the known Project Sta. Barbara patents are directly related to rocket or missile development or any other kind of weaponry. None involved fuel cells or hydrazine either.

A coda on Marcosian superweapon development: several months before the last publicized Bongbong tests, on May 24, 1975, MGen. Fabian Ver, then head of the Presidential Security Command, sent a short memorandum to Marcos. He said that a Lt. Col. Certeza (likely Rene Certeza, also of the PSC) introduced him to a certain Seitoko Tamaki, who “offered to deliver to us for use of the AFP a DEATH RAY machine using LASER beams that can kill, burn and destroy any object including tanks, trucks etc in its path to a range of 20 kms.” Marcos attached the memorandum to his May 27, 1975 diary entry, where he said, “I have ordered the matter [the “laser-beam weapon”] to be seriously considered.” Between weather control rockets and death rays, and later on deep-sea deuterium deposits, one wonders whether Marcos Sr. was basing his plans for Philippine development partly on science fiction.

Fabian Ver’s memorandum to Ferdinand Marcos Sr. on a “Death Ray,” from the digitized PCGG files.
Fabian Ver’s memorandum to Ferdinand Marcos Sr. on a “Death Ray,” from the digitized PCGG files.

The exact date that Project Sta. Barbara was shut down remains unknown. It is safe to say however that government-funded rocket or missile research did not die because of the 1986 EDSA Revolution or because Cory Aquino either abandoned it or shut it down. It died well before that. Marcos does not mention the need to revive the rocket program in his known post-presidency writings.

The Manila Standard reported in July 1990 that thirty-five 500-liter drums of anhydrous hydrazine were hidden “in an underground bunker at Sangley Point airbase in Cavite,” which had “deteriorated to the point that they are in danger of exploding.” The report noted that they were used in “the late President Marcos’ unsuccessful attempt in the 1970s to develop home-grown battlefield rocket capability.” If Sta. Barbara stopped experimenting with hydrazine in the late 1970s, then the drums in Cavite had been lying idle for over a decade at that time.

The dream for the Bongbong rockets ended neither with a whimper or a bang. That’s what the Philippine Marines today call “successful” and “triumphant.”

Imee’s half-truths on Self-Reliance Defense Posture
Posted on by diktaduraadmin

Originally published by Vera Files on May 27, 2024

Senator Imee Marcos, sister of the president, and daughter of the dictator, is known for making false claims or stating outright lies about herself, her family, and their legacy. Lately, she has been calling for a revival of her father’s Self-Reliance Defense Posture (SRDP) program, as if any attempts to have a self-reliant military or one buying from local manufacturers, were discarded after the Marcoses were deposed in 1986. This is not at all true.

Defense self-reliance not a Marcos brainchild

It is true that Imee’s father issued Presidential Decree no. 415 in 1974, “Authorizing the Secretary of National Defense to Enter into Defense Contracts to Implement Projects under the Self-Reliant Defense Programs and for Other Purposes,” which mandated a ₱100 million annual budget for the SRDP Program of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP).

But, as pointed out by a comprehensive (albeit now outdated) study on SRDP by Danilo Lazo and Juania Mercader, published in the Asian Studies journal, “The basic policy governing the self-reliance program can be found in Commonwealth Act No. 138” or the Flag Law, enacted back in 1936, “which requires preference for locally manufactured items in the procurement of supplies even if they cost up to fifteen percent higher than importing the said items.” Furthermore, Lazo and Mercader also note that “As early as 1948, the AFP has embarked into the long path of self-sufficiency especially when the Research and Development Center was organized to study the local manufacture of ammunition.” Self-reliance was not concocted by Marcos Sr. alone.

True as well, there are procurement-related restrictions that hamper support for the local defense industry, necessitating—at least for local contractors and the AFP—a new SRDP law. But this can be called for without resorting, as Imee does, to the old Marcos Golden Age myths. “Nasubukan na natin yan, at kinaya natin,” she said about SRDP during her father’s time in her 2024 Araw ng Kagitingan press release.

“Initiated by her father. . . . Under the program, the Philippines was producing M-16 rifles, hand grenades and various other ammunition, patrol boats, and military jeeps, among others,” her PR bit affirms.

Pushing for her father’s SRDP in Agusan del Sur on May 4 made the Philippine Daily Inquirer dig up a press release her office issued in February 2023, where she says, “In the 70’s to early 80’s, our SRDP was already producing M-16 rifles under license, steel helmets, hand grenades and other ammunition, handheld radios, Jiffy jeeps. It also created jobs and minimized foreign spending.” In the press release, Imee also “explained that Filipino manufacturers used local materials besides the imported parts from which technological know-how was gained, with the National Science Development Board [predecessor of the Department of Science and Technology] supporting research and development.”

More recently, during a May 18, 2024 interview with Zamboanga City radio station Magic 95.5, she said, “noong panahon ng tatay ko, may self-defense, may self-reliant defense posture…But now we virtually have no defense manufacturing at all. Ultimo bala natin imported. ‘Yung mga guns that we used to make are now imported from South Korea…Now it is all imported and we are struggling to rebuild.”

In all these statements, Imee asserts that her father’s SRDP program went without a hitch—we were producing what we needed on our own. The story of the oft-highlighted M16 manufacturing project, however, illustrates some of the Marcos-era issues glossed over by Imee and other SRDP law advocates: perennial funding issues, continued foreign reliance even for raw materials and supplies, cronyism, mismanagement, and misguided attempts at state-led arms exportation.

The Arms and Munitions “Metal-workers” of the ’70s

The Government Arsenal (GA), an agency under the Department of National Defense (DND), was created in 1957, through Republic Act No. 1884. This Garcia-era law states that “The Government hereby declares its policy to achieve within a reasonable time self-sufficiency in small arms, mortars, and other weapons, ammunition for these weapons, and other munitions for the use of the military establishments.” Other provisions of the law talk about the establishment of a small arms munitions plant “and all other plants,” as well as an initial appropriation of over ₱ 5.6 million. The next significant event in the GA story is the groundbreaking of the GA’s site in Limay, Bataan. It does not mention attempts in between to secure what eventually became a key source of funding for the Arsenal: Japanese war reparations.

Hilarion Henares Jr. claims that he drew up the plan to fund the Arsenal using reparations back when he headed the National Economic Council under the Macapagal administration. In October 1964, Macapagal publicly announced that reparations were going to be utilized to build a US$3 million munitions plant. Henares (in his book Beast and Beauty) and Macapagal (in his book A Stone for the Edifice) stated that the Japanese government was resistant to funding the plant proposal because doing so may be seen to contradict Japan’s constitutional renunciation of war, but they explained that the plant’s products would only be used for internal peace and security, not defense against external threats. Macapagal personally appealed for the proposal’s approval to Prime Minister Hayato Ikeda, who agreed to use reparations to construct a “metal-working plant” for the DND.

Government Arsenal, Photo from the Government Arsenal, DND (Philippines) Facebook Page

Several reparations contracts for “metal working and allied equipment” were executed between Japanese contractors and the Department of National Defense between November 1965—in the last days of the Macapagal administration, shortly after it became clear that Marcos Sr. beat Macapagal in the elections that year—and December 1975. The total value of these contracts exceeds US$ 8.6 million (1 USD = 3.9 ₱ from 1965-1969, 1 US$ = 6-7.2 ₱ from 1970-1975). A memorandum from secretary of defense Juan Ponce Enrile to Marcos Sr. dated January 6, 1971, confirms that the GA was heavily reliant on Japanese reparations, not only for equipment (the first of which was delivered in 1968) but also for personnel training.

Enrile, in an article in the 1978 Fookien Times Philippines Yearbook, stated that “the actual integrated manufacturing process [of the Arsenal] started only in the early part of 1974.” Enrile also stated that by 1978, the Arsenal’s plant was also producing 7.62 mm ammunition, “a pet project of the president,” and M16 (M161A) automatic rifles, “with most of its parts locally manufactured in joint venture with local private firms.” The 1981 propaganda book The Marcos Years: Achievements Under the New Society described the Philippines’s in-country M16 production capability as a highlight of the SRDP Program: “M-16 rifle is now assembled within the Government Arsenal site in Bataan, with all the rifle parts manufactured by local firms.”

Illustration accompanying an article on the GA M-16 manufacturing project, from October 2011 issue of the G.A. Bullet-in
Illustration accompanying an article on the GA M-16 manufacturing project, from October 2011 issue of the G.A. Bullet-in

Armscor and Elitool

Two firms prominently associated with arms manufacturing for the AFP are the Arms Corporation of the Philippines (Armscor) and the Elisco Tool Manufacturing Corporation (Elitool). Headquartered in Marikina, Armscor traces its roots to Squires Bingham Manufacturing, Inc., which was established as a firearms manufacturing company in the 1950s. A reorganization led to the creation of Armscor in 1980, with Squires Bingham becoming the former’s parent company. According to a 1986 position paper from Armscor, it sold a total of ₱ 23.8 million in arms and munitions to the AFP between 1981 and 1983 and did not make any sales to the Armed Forces beyond mid-1983. The position paper was submitted to the Presidential Commission on Good Government, in relation to publicized claims that Armscor was part of a ring of suppliers connected to former AFP chief Fabian Ver. Armscor weathered the accusation, continuing to thrive until today, with subsidiaries and customers worldwide; it has never been dependent on local defense contracts for profit.

Elitool was a different story. They were the principal company involved in the production of M16s mentioned by Enrile. But in the early 1970s, unlike Armscor/Squires Bingham, it was not primarily known as an arms manufacturer. It was known for making metal hand tools. The “Eli” in the name comes from the Elizalde Group of Companies. Manuel Elizalde Jr., a Marcos associate, owned the controlling shares of Elitool.

From the start of the M16 manufacturing project, months before Marcos Sr.’s SRDP decree was issued, the main entities involved were the Government Arsenal and Elitool. The Government of the Philippines (GOP) and Colt Industries approved ten-year licensing and transfer of technology agreements for the production of M16s on September 17, 1973, similar to a deal struck with the government of South Korea. According to a declassified US State Department cable dated September 18, 1973, the GOP and Colt agreed to a phased in-country production schedule, wherein the former would initially make direct purchases of several thousand M16s (months 0-9), then assemble the rifles in country, with locally sourced content increasing until year 6 (within 1979-1980) when the rifles will be produced in the Philippines with 100 percent local content. The cable states that the bolt and barrel manufacturing and final assembly were the GA’s responsibility; Elitool would manufacture everything else, “except those subcontracted out,” in its facilities within Metro Manila.

Just as the Arsenal relied on foreign funding to start making munitions, the rifle project needed foreign funding to get off the ground. The September 18, 1973 cable states that the Secretary of National Defense (headed by Juan Ponce Enrile) requested the US government for “an FMS [Foreign Military Sales] loan to partially finance the rifle plant project. Under the GOP request, the FMS loan would be for $15,614,000, divided into two annual installments [between 1974-75].” The cable also states that the GOP was going to assist Elitool “obtain a peso loan equivalent to approximately US$ 6,380,000” to further finance the project. Based on the transcripts of the US House of Representatives hearings for foreign assistance and related agencies appropriations for 1975, the memorandum of understanding for the FMS credit was signed in May 1974, and the repayment of the credit must be “in the form of principal and interest charges.”

Another agreement, specifically between the GOP (represented by Vicente Paterno, then chair of the Board of Investments) and Elitool, executed in October 1973, stated that the former would supply imported raw materials and production supplies to the latter. The original GOP-Elitool agreement also stated that the government would construct facilities in Fort Bonifacio (for bolt and barrel production) and in the GA complex in Bataan (for final assembly) at no cost to Elitool, who will supervise the construction of these facilities. The government would shoulder over ₱ 160 million in costs; Elitool would shoulder at least ₱ 42 million. Both, again, would rely on loans.

The expensive project involving the two “metal workers” yielded results. By April 1981, the GA and Elitool had delivered nearly 158,000 M16s out of an order of 172,500 units (150,000 rifles and 22,500 equivalent spares) though the project continued to rely on some imported materials/supplies obtained through Colt, as a “purchasing agent,” by the AFP. In April of that year, shortly before the agreement between the GOP and Elitool was set to expire, an amendment to the total order was made; Elitool was tasked to manufacture another 60,000 rifles, using SRDP funds, costing a total of ₱ 130 million.

Arms-dealing ambitions

What principally brought about the increase was a plan to export M16s to neighboring countries such as Indonesia and Thailand. General Romeo Espino, AFP chief, in his January 1981 proposal to Enrile to extend Elitool’s contract and amend its deliverables, stated that they could at the time undercut Colt itself by US$85 per rifle and make deliveries immediately, tapping into existing stock (ex-stock) manufactured by Elitool.

A total of ₱ 130,000,000 in SRDP funds was to be tapped for the extension-exportation scheme. With the approval by Marcos Sr., a deal was struck between the AFP and Elitool in November 1981: the former lent (or effectively “returned”) an initial 20,000 rifles to the latter for exportation, with the condition that Elitool will replenish the “borrowed” rifles with proceeds from overseas sales. It seemed like a win-win, as the rifle project was proving to be financially burdensome by that time, and the deal would ideally result in more rifles for the AFP and the sustainability of GA-Elitool’s firearm-manufacturing capability.

If the value of SRPD exports was any indication, the Philippines was hardly on its way to becoming a well-patronized defense materiel manufacturer in the early 1980s. In an article in the 1983-1984 edition of the Fookien Times Yearbook, AFP chief of staff Gen. Fabian Ver said that by November 1983, SRDP exports—including tactical radios, practice bombs, and small arms and ammunition—had earned a total of less than USD 8 million since 1974 (1 US$ = 11.11 ₱ in 1983).

Exportation, however, was not readily permitted by the existing agreements with Colt and the United States government. Department of State cables show that the US was supportive of the project as a means of helping the Philippines develop self-reliance, resulting in foreign exchange savings to the Philippines and potentially strengthening local support for the retention of US bases. But cables also show that the US government did not want the Marcos government to sell rifles received under the production program without the former’s consent, while the final agreements with Colt specified that the products of their licensee could not be sold to other countries. According to James Everett Katz, in the 1984 book Arms Production in Developing Countries, “Although Colt had agreed in the September 1973 agreement to the production of an additional 65,000 M-16s for export, the U.S. government insisted in the May 1974 agreement that the provision be dropped.”

Katz further details failed attempts to work out an exportation deal: “[In early 1981,] Colt was willing to allow the Philippines to export 65,000 M-16s, but it also imposed a number of new conditions. Colt wanted to determine to which countries the Philippines could export, to require that raw materials be ordered through Colt, and to charge a royalty fee based on the Colt price for an M-16.” The Philippines did not find these conditions acceptable. Colt and the US government made moves to prevent overseas sales deals. For instance, Colt sent a letter in October 1981 to the Minister of Defense and Security of Indonesia, stating that “the contracts between Colt Firearms and their various licensees do not allow them to sell either rifles or parts to other countries.” A similarly worded letter was sent to the chief of the Ordnance Department of the Royal Thai Navy in June 1982, not by Colt, but by the Counselor for Commercial Affairs of the US Embassy.

Thus, by mid-1982, Elitool had 20,000 rifles with nowhere to go. Instead of returning the rifles to AFP, however, another deal involving the guns was approved by Marcos Sr., this time between Elitool and the Integrated National Police (INP). Pursuant to agreements made in April and September 1983, the INP, headed by Philippine Constabulary chief General Fidel Ramos, bought the rifles from Elitool, and Elitool was to use the proceeds of the sale to fund the replacement of the 20,000 guns for the AFP.

Letter from Manuel Elizalde to Ferdinand E. Marcos on the Elitool-INP supply contract for 20,000 rifles, from the PCGG files
Letter from Manuel Elizalde to Ferdinand E. Marcos on the Elitool-INP supply contract for 20,000 rifles, from the PCGG files

Gen. Fabian Ver opposed Elitool-INP contract

General Ver did not like the deal. Writing to Marcos in July 1983, Ver insisted that the 20,000 rifles were AFP property, so “any agreement concerning the sale of the 20,000 rifles should be between the AFP and INP.” He wanted the ₱ 57 million that the INP was going to pay Elitool to go to the AFP instead. Marcos Sr. did not approve the proposal.

Elitool by then had yet to complete the original 172,500 M16 order, much more the 60,000 addition, largely because of the cancellation of the GOP-Colt agreements in June 1982 precisely because of the failed exportation plan. Without Colt, the AFP needed to find another raw materials and supplies purchaser, which it eventually did in 1983.

According to Elizalde, in a letter to Marcos Sr. dated September 13, 1982, it was the Philippine government that initiated the termination of the GOP-Colt agreements because of the export issue. He also emphasized that there was a need to pump money to the rifle program; “without the export, the Republic would sustain heavy financial and adverse socio-economic consequences,” Elizalde said.

Letter from Manuel Elizalde, Jr. to Ferdinand E. Marcos, on the export of M16A1 Rifles, with handwritten reply of Marcos, from the PCGG files (p. 1)
Letter from Manuel Elizalde, Jr. to Ferdinand E. Marcos, on the export of M16A1 Rifles, with handwritten reply of Marcos, from the PCGG files (p. 3)
Letter from Manuel Elizalde, Jr. to Ferdinand E. Marcos, on the export of M16A1 Rifles, with handwritten reply of Marcos, from the PCGG files (p. 2)
Letter from Manuel Elizalde, Jr. to Ferdinand E. Marcos, on the export of M16A1 Rifles, with handwritten reply of Marcos, from the PCGG files (p. 1)
Letter from Manuel Elizalde, Jr. to Ferdinand E. Marcos, on the export of M16A1 Rifles, with handwritten reply of Marcos, from the PCGG files (p. 3)
Letter from Manuel Elizalde, Jr. to Ferdinand E. Marcos, on the export of M16A1 Rifles, with handwritten reply of Marcos, from the PCGG files (p. 2)

Letter from Manuel Elizalde, Jr. to Ferdinand E. Marcos, on the export of M16A1 Rifles, with handwritten reply of Marcos, from the PCGG files

Elizalde’s letter was a cry for help to Marcos Sr., imploring that the GOP “obtain from the US Government official written consent for us to export M16A1 rifles to friendly countries”; the president’s handwritten reply was, “Why not bring the Armalite and manufacture this as such.” Thus, in 1983, Marcos’s recommendation led to Elitool obtaining the exclusive rights to manufacture, use, and sell Armalite’s AR18, AR5, and AR100-series rifles instead of Colt M16s. Armalite was already struggling financially during the early 1980s, and the M16 was patterned after Armalite’s AR15, so effectively selling to Elitool made sense. However, Armalite was never fully compensated during the time of Marcos Sr.; a May 15, 1986 communication to Jovito Salonga, head of the PCGG, from then AFP chief Fidel Ramos, states that by that time, Armalite had complied with about 90 percent of its commitments despite incomplete payments “due to budgetary constraints.”

There were budgetary constraints regarding the extended rifle production project even before the deal with Armalite. In December 1982, Budget Minister Manuel Alba sent a memorandum to Marcos on the “Additional Costs of the AFP SRDP Project, the M16 A1 Rifles.” By then, Alba said that ₱ 45 million had already been released (even without any additional rifles being produced). Defense minister Juan Ponce Enrile was asking for the release of an additional ₱ 25.89 million from the Defense Capability Defense Program (DCDP) of the Ministry of National Defense to increase the down payment to Elitool. Alba noted that only the reserve fund of the DCDP could be tapped, but doing so would increase the country’s already guaranteed end-of-year budget deficit. Alba suggested that they tap the 1983 SRDP appropriation instead, to which Marcos Sr. agreed.

Memorandum from budget minister Manuel Alba, on additional costs of AFP SRDP project, the M16 A1 Rifles (p. 1)
Memorandum from budget minister Manuel Alba, on additional costs of AFP SRDP project, the M16 A1 Rifles (p. 2)

Memorandum from budget minister Manuel Alba, on additional costs of AFP SRDP project, the M16 A1 Rifles, with handwritten approval of Ferdinand E. Marcos, from the PCGG files

In any case, even with funds from the INP, a new purchasing agent for the AFP, and the Armalite license, Elitool was still unable to replace the 20,000 rifles it borrowed when they became due in 1985. A year before, however, General Ver was still claiming that the Philippines was doing so well in rifle production that it was ready to export M16s. During a February 1984 visit of his Indonesian counterpart, Gen. Leonardus Benjamin Murdani, Ver presented the former with a locally manufactured M16 as a gift, and was quoted by the local media as saying that “the Philippines is ready to export locally manufactured armalites (M-16s).” A declassified US State Department cable noted that as per defense ministry source, “Although [the GOP] is capable of exporting M-16 [it] was not now ready to do so,” because “problems with Colt would have to be sorted out first.”

The arms deal under the Cory Aquino administration

After the fall of the Marcos regime, Elitool offered to return the proceeds of the rifle sale to the INP, as it felt that it was exceedingly difficult to fulfill its obligations due to circumstances beyond its control. In an August 1987 letter to Col. Danilo Lazo, Acting Deputy Chief of Staff for Materiel Development of the AFP, Deogracias Salumbides, executive vice president and general manager of Elitool, said that they were unable to “effect immediate replacement of the rifles” because of “the unforeseen delay in the rehabilitation of government- owned facilities of the M16A1 Project” and the “failure of the AFP to provide the necessary spare parts and supplies.” “Manufacturing cost has gone up over the years,” continued Salumbides, “and even if we assume that production would presently commence, sales proceeds [presumably from sales to the AFP] will not be sufficient to cover the total replacement cost of the project.”

Nevertheless, in 1989, the Corazon Aquino administration, required Elitool—chaired by Manuel Elizalde’s sister-in-law, Josine Loinaz Elizalde—to deliver what it owed. Elitool eventually completed the original 172,500 order in 1987, and by March 1990 had delivered an additional 44,625 M16s. The plans to locally manufacture AR18s did not prosper, but the GOP, as represented by then Secretary of National Defense Fidel Ramos, did contract Elitool to also produce 3,500 prototype AR100 rifles, as well as another 12,000 M16s to be delivered between 1990-1991. It is unclear if Elitool was able to deliver the additional orders, or when Elitool formally folded up. In 1995, the rights to the Armalite trademark were sold to an American company, Eagle Arms.

Certification from Capt. Francis Mallillin on the number of M16 deliveries and cost of the rifles, from the PCGG files
Certification from Capt. Francis Mallillin on the number of M16 deliveries and cost of the rifles, from the PCGG files

A certification from BGen. Umberto Rodriguez, Deputy Chief of Staff for Materiel Development, dated 27 March 1990, noted that Elitool was fined a total of ₱ 17,175.59 for the delay in completing the original 172,500-rifle order. While Ramos was running for president in 1992, the INP sale issue was brought up against him, but no one was ever found to be criminally liable for the deal. When Ramos became president, he attempted to nominate Manuel Elizalde as ambassador to Mexico, but withdrew the nomination, reportedly because the public brought up the Marcos ties of the Elizaldes.

Certification from BGen. Umberto Rodriguez on the delay of Elitool’s M16 deliveries, from the PCGG files
Certification from BGen. Umberto Rodriguez on the delay of Elitool’s M16 deliveries, from the PCGG files

According to a report by Luz Rimban, remnants of Elitool eventually formed Precision Technology Producers’ Cooperative, later Precision Munitions Inc., that, in the 2000s obtained contracts to refurbish the same Elitool M16s for the Philippine National Police, though questions were raised about the quality of their work. The Arsenal is far from what it was when it was funded by war reparations and FMS credits; it continues to produce munitions and small arms (of small quantity), and can repair, refurbish, or upgrade/convert rifles, but not mass produce them. Corazon Aquino’s Executive Order No. 292, or the Administrative Code of 1987, contains provisions on the GA, including one that mandates the Arsenal to “Formulate plans and programs to achieve self-sufficiency in arms, mortars and other weapons and munitions.” It was reported in 2016 that the Commission on Audit found that the GA was still using ammunition-producing machines between 12-39 years old, meaning it was still using equipment from the 1970s. News on COA’s most recent assessment stated that the GA missed its ammunition production targets, with the representatives from the GA attributing their output issue to old, failing machinery.

Today’s SRDP

Today’s SRDP proponents and advocates need to look at the supposed Marcos-era “success stories,” like the M16 project, with more sober eyes. Will they advocate contracting existing arms manufacturers, or help build up would-be crony firms via capital-intensive, debt-financed, and ultimately unsustainable projects? Will they push for exports to the possible detriment of building up domestic defense capabilities? Will making the Philippines, by hook or by crook, a global arms dealer be made part and parcel of self-reliance?

The House’s SRDP bill, HB 9713, and the Senate’s version, SB 2455 (of which Imee is a co-author), have both been approved on third reading, and, as of May 22, 2024, are set for bicameral conference committee reconciliation. Both contain a provision mandating the government to “promote the export of locally made materiel” and local enterprises to other countries; the Senate version encourages, while the House version requires, the allocation of funds “for the purpose of such promotion.” The Senate version orders an initial ₱ 1 billion to be appropriated for the implementation of the SRDP program.

What is this Bagong Pilipinas?
Posted on by diktaduraadmin

Originally published by Vera Files on January 26, 2024

Why is a potentially massive public event in support of President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr.’s brand of governance seemingly shrouded in secrecy and deception?

On Sunday, Jan. 28,  a kick-off rally for the Bagong Pilipinas campaign will be held at the Quirino Grandstand in Rizal Park, Manila. A Jan. 22 news release by the Presidential Communications Office (PCO), announced that  “government officials, celebrities and other personalities,” as well as the president himself, are expected to attend the rally, which “the Filipino public” can attend.

Bagong Pilipinas, based on a memorandum circular issued by the Office of the President in June 2023, is the “[Bongbong Marcos] Administration’s brand of governance and leadership,” which is “characterized by a principled, accountable and dependable government reinforced by unified institutions of society, whose common objective is to realize the goals and aspirations of every Filipino.” The memorandum circular also mandated the use of the Bagong Pilipinas logo by all national government agencies.

Not only is it carried by government websites and stamped on official letterheads, it’s also on trains and in train stations.

Also well-publicized are the Bagong Pilipinas creative competitions for college students. The deadline for these contests—in songwriting, essay writing, mural painting, and spoken word poetry—as well as a short film competition with the theme “Ano ang Bagong Pilipinas (What is a new Philippines)?” was on November 20, 2023, 5 p.m. The work of the winners, yet to be announced, are expected to show “the Filipino youth’s aspirations for a Bagong Pilipinas or the inspirational Filipino excellence and unbreakable spirit that will enable this call-to-action realization.” The total value of the prizes for the competitions is substantial; the national level prizes alone total almost P2.2 million.

Interestingly, a curious alteration was made by the PCO to their October 7, 2023 Facebook posts about the contests. The guidelines for each of the contests can be viewed in pictures attached to the posts. Without any accessible explanation online, however, the picture-guidelines now state that the deadline for the competitions was on January 12, 2024, 5 p.m. The guidelines on PCO’s Instagram account remain unaltered. What is even more curious is the date when the pictures were replaced, which one can confirm by looking at the edit history of the posts: January 16, 2024. How then would prospective entrants have known that the deadline for entries was extended by twenty-four days, when the surreptitious “announcement” of the extension was made four days after the new deadline?

“Late submissions will not be accepted,” state both the old and the new guidelines. Was the alteration made to better link the competitions with the seemingly sudden kick-off rally?

Screenshots from the PCO Facebook Page
Screenshots from the PCO Facebook Page

In any case, given the ubiquity of Bagong Pilipinas, as well as the various Bagong Pilipinas Serbisyo Fair caravans held throughout the country last year, it is a puzzle why a kick-off rally is still necessary. Among those who have wondered aloud about the rally is the president’s elder sister, Senator Imee Marcos.

In a Jan. 20  radio interview, Imee talked about obtaining a copy of a letter, issued by an undersecretary of a government agency, which purportedly ordered government employees to attend the kick-off. Sen. Marcos called the event a “BBM [Bongbong Marcos] loyalty rally.” Allegedly, state employees in attendance would do so on official time, and be provided with food and transportation. “Kaninong pera nanaman ito? Bakit maghahakot?” she asked; “Hindi ba mas dinidiin na insecure sila o tagilid, may destab? Hindi ko maiintindihan ang pakay nito,” she added, alluding to rumored destabilization plots against her brother’s administration. A day before her interview, Politiko also published a “Politiskoop” about a communication very similar to the one Sen. Marcos described, stating that it ordered “regional directors to identify 250 employees who will attend [the rally].” T-shirts and entitlement to compensatory time off were also supposedly among the “perks” of attending the event.

It is notable that the primary Facebook pages of several national government agencies all posted about the event sometime between 6 and 7 p.m. on Jan. 22, several hours after the only news about the event, besides those on the “hakot” memoranda, focused on road closures and traffic rerouting because of the rally.

The text of their posts were standardized (“Halina at maging parte ng pagbabago para sa ating sarili, komunidad, at bayan!” they all state), with an accompanying poster, featuring what appears to be a composite of photographs of the well-attended “Uniteam” rallies during the 2022 election campaign (without highlighting the other half of the Uniteam, Vice President Sara Duterte), that each department/office modified with their logo.

Along with Philippine National Police posts about a Jan. 19 initial coordination meeting for the rally, and a Jan. 18 ocular visit to Quirino Grandstand by the National Secretariat of the Bagong Pilipinas Serbisyo Fair, it seems that the planning and coordination for what is projected to be an event attended by thousands is only being done less than two weeks before it is scheduled.

Which is highly unlikely. Indeed, when one searches for more information about the kick-off rally online, one will find various documents and posts from 2023 referring to a Bagong Pilipinas Kick-Off rally at the Quirino Grandstand scheduled on December 10, 2023. Among these are Department of Interior and Local Government memorandum circular, dated November 28, 2023, asking Local Government Units to “Support the launch and kick-off ceremony of the Bagong Pilipinas campaign through the attendance of the Local Chief Executive, other local officials, and representatives from various sectors in the LGU, on December 10, 2023, at the Quirino Grandstand, Rizal Park, City of Manila”; a Request for Quotation, dated November 14, 2023 from the Bids and Awards Committee of the PCO for “Printed Collaterals for Bagong Pilipinas Kick-off Rally Luzon” with an approved budget for the contract (ABC) amounting to P275,000.00 and specifying the delivery date to be December 8, 2023 at the Quirino Grandstand; a Facebook post, dated November 5, 2023 from the Angono [Rizal] Public Information Office supporting the December 10 kick-off ceremony; and information about one of the rally’s performers posted on Instagram on December 1, 2023.

DILG Memorandum Circular No. 2023-187, Stating That the Date of the Kick-Off Ceremony of the Bagong Pilipin… by VERA Files on Scribd

There are also documents without a date, but are clearly concerned with the Dec. 10 rally. There is a PCO Invitation to Bid, dated October 31,2023, for the procurement of tokens and collaterals for the “Bagong Pilipinas Launch.” These tokens/collaterals are aprons, ballers, caps, car stickers, hoodie jackets, tote bags, t-shirts, and tumblers, all with an ABC of nearly P1 million each, totaling over P7.5 million.

Such documents give Sen. Marcos the answer to her question, “Kaninong pera nanaman ito?”

There is a Department of Public Works and Highways department memorandum, dated November 23, 2023, concerning Memorandum Circular no. 39, signed by Executive Secretary Lucas P. Bersamin, “Directing all national government agencies and instrumentalities, including government-owned or controlled corporations, government financial institutions, and state universities and colleges, and encouraging all local government units, to attend, participate and provide full support to the [undated] Bagong Pilipinas Official Campaign Kick-off Rally.” The MC, dated November 9, 2023, directs the PCO “to lead and organize the conduct of the Bagong Pilipinas Official Campaign Kick-Off Rally.”

DPWH DMC 81, s. 2023, With Memorandum Circular No. 39, s. 2023 From the Office of the President by VERA Files on Scribd

PCO Invitation to Bid for Tokens and Collaterals for the Bagong Pilipinas Launch by VERA Files on Scribd

Interestingly, there is no copy of Memorandum Circular no. 39, s. 2023 downloadable from the online Official Gazette, or anywhere else—including the PCO website and Facebook page—besides the DPWH website as of this writing. After MC no. 38, issued on October 27, 2023, is MC no. 40, released on November 14. Even trying to open a possibly hidden page on the MC based on the format of the URLs or addresses for the other circulars (i.e., https://www.officialgazette.gov.ph/2023/11/09/memorandum-circular-no-39-s-2023/) leads to a “page not found” page.

Of course, there was no Bagong Pilipinas kick-off rally at Rizal Park in December last year. One explanation for the event’s cancellation is the Facebook announcement by the PCO on December 5, 2023, at exactly 12 midnight, that the president contracted COVID-19 for the third time, and that he was advised to isolate for five days, or until December 10. The lack of an official notice of cancellation, however, led to odd posts from unofficial sources that simultaneously stated that the December 10 rally was cancelled but the event was also “fake news.” Online remnants, however, clearly indicate otherwise.

Extended bidding may have also been a factor in the cancellation. An Invitation to Bid (second round) for the “Rental of Technical Equipment for the Bagong Pilipinas Kick-off Rally in Luzon for the Presidential Communications Office” was issued on December 7, 2023. The ABC for each lot totaled P16.4 million. The first Invitation to Bid was issued on Nov. 6. As per the bid documents, the equipment to be rented include various speakers, confetti machines, a thousand steel barricades, thirty-nine mist fans, and seventy portalets. It is unclear when the PCO made the decision to procure one lot each of customized lanyards (ABC, P200,000.00) and customized t-shirts (P300,000.00) “for Bagong Pilipinas Launch” and arm sleeves (P300,000.00) “for Bagong Pilipinas Communication Kit,” but the Request for Quotation for these lots that can be downloaded from PCO website was issued on December 15, 2023.

There is clearly a lack of transparency from Bongbong’s communications team regarding these projects. To reiterate what has been detailed elsewhere, those charged with presidential communications claim to be against disinformation, but they have, several times since Bongbong’s term started, reproduced lies about the president, stated by the president himself or his allies. Are they now also lying or keeping secrets about themselves, ironically regarding projects worth well over P20 million for promoting “a principled, accountable and dependable government”?

Incidentally, the upcoming rally will not be the first event at the Quirino Grandstand featuring “Bagong Pilipinas” in connection with a Philippine president in recent memory. “Bagong Pilipinas” was the title of the “inaugural song” of President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III, whose inauguration was held at the Grandstand on June 30, 2010. Written by Ogie Alcasid and Noel Cabangon, the lyrics of the song repeatedly invoke unity (the first lines are “Anuman ang iyong kulay/Ang Pilipinas ay nagtagumpay”).

The newer Bagong Pilipinas campaign can easily adopt the song for itself, happy though Bongbong seems to be with recycling the Bagong Lipunan/New Society anthems of his father’s dictatorship.

Marcos lies still
Posted on by diktaduraadmin

Originally published by Vera Files on October 18, 2023

A whole book, Marcos Lies, has already been written documenting in copious detail the Marcoses’ penchant for making untrue statements mythologizing themselves. But at least one Marcos, the president himself, Ferdinand “Bongbong” R. Marcos Jr., is still constantly giving material for future volumes, undermining his own administration’s anti-misinformation drive.

Marcos Lies book cover

Many of these false statements are being circulated—in the form of press releases, transcripts, and audiovisual recordings—by offices under the Presidential Communications Office (PCO). On August 14, 2023, the Marcos Jr. administration launched a Media and Information Literacy Campaign, popularly billed as the government’s anti-fake news initiative. The PCO is the lead agency of the campaign. At launch, some found the campaign to be, at the very least, tinged with irony, given various evidence-based claims that Marcos partly relied on massive disinformation during his presidential run. During the recent 2024 budget deliberations in Congress, the PCO, based on its own reportage, “earned the approval and support of the House of Representatives on its Media and Information Literacy (MIL) campaign,” after proposing the allocation of ₱16.899 million for the program. Will some of that money go to correcting false or inaccurate statements even if they are made by the president himself, or help in further propagating them?

Rice price

An October 7, 2023 news release from the PCO bore the headline: “Price Cap Stabilized Rice Prices – PBBM.” The article does not explain how the president, concurrently secretary of agriculture, determined that the price ceilings he set on regular millied and well-milled rice (via Executive Order no. 39, issued on Aug. 31, 2023, which took effect on Sept. 5, 2023) directly led to rice price stabilization. The order lifting the price cap, Executive Order no. 42, issued on Oct. 4, 2023, simply states that the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Trade and Industry “have jointly recommended the lifting of the mandated price ceilings in view of the decreasing rice prices in the domestic market, increasing supply of rice stock, and declining global rice prices”; again, no causal relationship between the price cap and price stabilization is established. Critics have pointed out that rice prices have in fact been increasing, and is the main driver of recent food inflation; indeed, the Philippine Statistics Authority stated that the “uptrend in the food inflation [in September 2023] was mainly due to the higher annual increment in rice with inflation rate of 19.8 percent during the month from 9.1 percent in the previous month.”

In March this year, rice industry monitor Bantay Bigas also called out the president for stating that his promise of lowering the price of rice to 20 pesos per kilo was close to becoming a reality (“Kaunti na lang, maibababa na natin ‘yan,” were his exact words). Clearly, rice prices are still nowhere near 20 pesos per kilo. That for months now, Marcos has seemed unable to be truthful about the price of rice should not be surprising to those who know the various falsities that he has propagated both about himself and his family, ranging from false claims about his educational attainment to characterizations of his father’s dictatorship. Well into the second year of the Marcos Jr. administration, dishonesty still readily attaches to the Marcos name.

Relocated birthplace

Some recent false information circulating about Marcos may be in the nature of clerical errors. For instance, in his official website, pbbm.com.ph, the president’s biography states that he was born “in the town of Batac, Ilocos Norte.” Marcos was born at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Santa Ana, Manila. He did not even grow up in Ilocos Norte (by his own admission, he can hardly be considered fluent in Ilocano), though he had to claim residency there during the times that he was either an elected executive (with a reputation for being an absentee governor) or a congressional representative.

Screenshot of Bongbong biography with incorrect birthplace, from pbbm.com.ph
Screenshot of Bongbong biography with incorrect birthplace, from pbbm.com.ph

The “error,” if indeed inadvertent, has been reproduced in mainstream news outlets and state-run media and in government websites such as those of the Philippine Consulates General in San Francisco and New York and the Climate Change Commission. It seems unlikely that Bongbong ordered that his place of birth be changed to that of his paternal grandfather, since such information can be easily verified. However, one wonders if he has not noticed the relocation of his birthplace on his website, which superseded bongbongmarcos.com after he became “PBBM.” The profile is otherwise fairly factual, even stating at least one truth that Bongbong himself does not accept: the fact that he was defeated in the 2016 elections.

“Historic Visit”

There are other lies, also easily verifiable, that Marcos has recently echoed and amplified himself. On September 23, 2023, Marcos was in Iriga City, Camarines Sur to distribute sacks of seized smuggled rice to 4Ps beneficiaries. Both the PCO and the Philippine Information Agency reported on a claim made by Marcos that because of that visit, he is the first president in 55 years to come to the Rinconada (5th) District of Camarines Sur, which is made up of Iriga City and the towns of Baao, Balatan, Bato, Buhi, Bula, and Nabua; purportedly, the district’s last presidential visitor was Marcos’s father, Ferdinand Sr. The alleged source of the claim repeated uncritically by Marcos is Camarines Sur 5th District Representative Migz Villafuerte, who first entered politics in his early 20s in 2013. Both the young Villafuerte and senior citizen Marcos appear to have forgotten about a 2016 visit to Iriga by President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino. That the visit was in line with the campaign of the Roxas-Robredo tandem endorsed by Aquino should be a non-issue, given that Bongbong mentioned that his father’s first visit to Iriga, back in 1965, was also for electoral purposes.

If any and all visits count, Noynoy also went to Iriga in 2012 to visit two wakes—that of then Secretary of Justice Leila de Lima’s father and that of Private First Class Arwin Martirez, who was killed in action in Basilan. If only working visits are counted, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo went to Iriga on Sept. 4, 2008, as part of a tour of projects being done for Camarines Sur. She attended a briefing on the Bicol River Basin Development Project there. Only President Duterte appears to have never visited the Rinconada district while he was in office, though he did conduct an aerial survey of areas in Camarines Sur hit by Tropical Depression Usman in January 2019, which included Iriga, Nabua, Bula, and Baao. Even that should be sufficient to challenge Marcos’s claim that only presidents named Marcos have visited the district or Iriga in particular (“Marcos lang ang bumibisita sa inyo na pangulo [dahil] malapit kayo sa puso namin”).

“Founding Figure”

Charitably, Marcos’s fib about his “historic visit” was simply an attempt to endear himself to a captive audience. But one questionable claim he recently made may have been designed to suggest that he had political clout independent from being a Marcos or being a close associate of another political juggernaut, the Dutertes. On Aug. 24, 2023, an oathtaking of new members of Marcos’s political party, the Partido Federal ng Pilipinas (PFP), was held in Malacañang Palace. Marcos gave a speech, stating that the party was “Headed of course — who has been helmed really since the beginning of the campaign by Governor Jun Tamayo. But of course the origin of this goes back to my first run as vice president with General Tom Lantion that he – siya ang nauna that proposed this.” Marcos ran for vice president in 2016, while he was a member of the Nacionalista Party.

Oathtaking of New Partido Federal ng Pilipinas Members, 24 August 2023, from the RTVM YouTube channel
Oathtaking of New Partido Federal ng Pilipinas Members, 24 August 2023, from the RTVM YouTube channel

Based on archived versions of the party’s currently inaccessible website, PFP’s president when Marcos joined the party back in 2021 was indeed South Cotabato governor Reynaldo “Jun” Tamayo Jr. PFP’s first leaders/founders include former Land Bank of the Philippines director Jayvee Hinlo and former Department of Agrarian Reform secretary John Castriciones. Castriciones was also the founder of the Mayor Rodrigo Roa Duterte-National Executive Coordinating Committee (MRRD-NECC). In October 2018, PFP was formally accredited by the Commission on Elections. Bongbong back then was a private citizen, having lost his bid for the vice presidency. Even during the 2019 elections, with a Marcos (Imee) running for a national position, PFP was associated with Duterte, not Bongbong. Marcos’s entry into PFP in October 2021 was not without controversy; Castriciones was among those booted out of the party’s leadership before Marcos became the party’s standard bearer. Also preceding Marcos’s entry into the party was the designation of his legal counsel and later short-lived executive secretary Victor Rodriguez as PFP’s executive vice president; in November 2022, Rodriguez was also kicked out of PFP for “acts inimical to the party” and being an “undesirable civil servant.”

A few months after Marcos won, an article in the Manila Times gave the longer version of the PFP’s (revised) history, as told by Lantion and Atty. George Briones, who were indeed with the party from the beginning. Hinlo and Castriciones are not mentioned by name, nor is Rodriguez given any mention. Lantion describes himself as Bongbong’s security when the latter was studying in La Salle Greenhills, as well as a former close-in security of Ferdinand Sr. Briones called Bongbong a “political genius” responsible “for making the PFP what it is today.” But even this Marcos-focused narrative does not state that they had anything to do with Marcos’s vice presidential campaign, though in another twist (contradicting all previous claims and publicly available documentation), Lantion told the Daily Tribune back in July 2023 that Marcos in fact became a member of PFP on October 5, 2018, the day the party was accredited.

During the Malacañang oathtaking, Marcos also claimed that PFP was the “majority party.” Either Marcos does not understand what a majority party is, or he is overselling the strength of his party, which still seems slow in attracting newcomers, even if PFP’s most prominent members currently include himself and his son, Ilocos Norte First District Representative Sandro Marcos. Sandro, along with a little over a dozen governors and a few presidential appointees, became the newest members of PFP during the August oathtaking. A Manila Bulletin article on the father-son joining correctly states that the “dominant political party in the House” is Lakas-Christian Muslim Democrats (party president: Marcos’s first cousin, Martin Romualdez), but notes that that party is “closely linked” to PFP. Perhaps Bongbong is simply being truthful about the state of party politics in the Philippines.

Youth Act author

There is a grain of truth in another false claim that Marcos recently reiterated: that he is the main author of Republic Act No. 8044, or the Youth in Nation-Building Act. In a recorded message for the commemoration of the establishment of the National Youth Commision, uploaded on August 12, 2023, Marcos said that “in [his] time as congressman,” he authored RA no. 8044, “the law that created [the commission].” He also said that when he was senator, he also authored RA 10742, or the Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) Reform Act of 2015, a slightly less (but still) controversial claim.

Since 2017, after the legislative histories of post-EDSA Revolution laws became accessible online through the House of Representatives’ Legislative Information System or LEGIS, Marcos’s role in the development of the Youth in Nation-Building Act has been fact-checked or contextualized several times. Records clearly show that Marcos was the principal author of one of several bills seeking to create a youth body during the Ninth Congress (1992-1995), and that these bills were substituted by House Bill no. 11614, whose principal author is Jaime C. Lopez of the City of Manila’s second district; Marcos is listed as second co-author, after Zamboanga del Norte’s Artemio Adasa. Lopez was one of the first members of Lakas-NUCD, President Fidel Ramos’s coalition.

LEGIS further shows that Marcos was not the first to file a Youth Commission bill during the Ninth Congress. First was HB no. 15, filed by Lopez in June 1992; second was HB 2872, “An Act Establishing a Permanent and Continuing Youth Leadership Development Institute, and Appropriating Funds Therefor,” filed by Adasa in September 1992; third was Marcos’s HB 4660, filed on November 16, 1992; and fourth was HB 4936, filed on November 23, 1992 by Dante Liban of Quezon City. Even earlier, in February 1988, during the Eighth Congress, Adasa had already filed HB 5400, “An Act Creating the Philippine National Youth Commission, Defining Its Powers, Functions and Responsibilities, and Appropriating Funds Therefor.”

During the consolidated bill’s second reading, it had six sponsors. Ramon Durano III, as chair of the House Committee on Youth and Sports Development, gave his sponsorship speech first; Marcos was fourth in line. Voting unanimously, the bill was approved on third reading by the House on March 21, 1994. The bill was soon transmitted to the Senate. Numerous revisions were made to the Senate counterpart bill, SB 1977.

There is no readily available evidence that Marcos actively participated in the reconciliation of SB 1977 and HB 11614. Reportage of his activities in May-June 1995 suggest that the legislator was mainly preoccupied with protesting his electoral defeat and the ultimately unsuccessful attempts to keep his mother, Imelda Marcos, from occupying the congressional seat that she won. Thereafter, in July 1995, citizen Bongbong also had to deal with his conviction for several tax cases.

Moreover, news articles regarding the Youth Commission bill within the year of its enactment stated that Jaime Lopez was the bill’s principal author, or mentioned Bongbong as being key to the law’s finalization or enactment. Lopez appealed for the Senate to pass the measure, which, again, had been through numerous revisions in the upper chamber.

Philippines Free Press article, dated July 29, 1995, states that “the [youth] commission’s creation was a hard-won battle” as “youth leaders had vigorously lobbied the 8th and 9th Congresses for its creation.” Indeed, it seems that the only times Bongbong’s role in the creation of the National Youth Commission was highlighted before the RA no. 8044’s enactment were in articles specifically about Bongbong. For instance, an article in the Sept. 18, 1993 issue of the Manila Bulletin, titled “Philippine Youth Commision: Let the Young Voice be Heard,” is accompanied only by four photos of Bongbong, with captions “A body like PYC is urgently needed,” “They oppose it because of who I am,” “I was a rebel teenager too,” and “I want a peaceful life for my son.” The article said that he was “making the rounds of youth groups to collect suggestions, recommendations and needless to say support for the PRC bill,” but there were accusations that he “will just use this as a vehicle for [his] own political ambitions.” Again, Marcos was one of many (and never principal) proponents, authors, and co-sponsors of a youth commission law. Another article, in Asiaweek‘s July 7, 1993 issue, says that his pet bill “is one to create a Philippine Youth Commission,” but that the definition of youth for him were those ages 15-40; the law that was passed limited the youth to those ages 15-30.

In the same article, Bongbong reportedly stated that he obtained the equivalent of a master’s degree in Oxford, but Asiaweek included a parenthetical fact check: “Oxford says he was granted a non-degree Special Diploma in Social Studies in 1978.”

Given that Marcos was far from the first to come up with a law establishing a Philippine Youth Commission, can he at least claim that he was the most influential legislator in the development of the Youth in Nation-Building Act? In his infamous 1995 interview with Kris Aquino (where he says that he turned seven during his birthday in Malacañang; he actually turned eight) despite a portion where they discuss the youth and the congressman giving a closing statement directed to young Filipinos, Marcos never discussed the pending bill. In his 1994 interview with Jun Urbano (as his “Mr. Shooli” character), despite discussing a range of subjects (and lying about his educational attainment), Marcos did not say anything about the creation of a youth commission. His profile in the July 1992-April 1993 issue of Congressional Highlights, which devoted to the first ten months of the Ninth Congress, does not list the Philippine Youth Commission bill as among his priority bills (among those of neophyte representatives, only the profile of Nicetas Panes of Iloilo lists “An Act to Establish the Philippine Commission on Youth Development and for Other Purposes” among his legislative priorities; Panes was listed as a co-author of both Lopez’s HB 15 and Marcos’s HB 4660). In an opinion column in the Manila Standard, dated April 10, 1995, the late Nelson Navarro noted, “Despite the hoopla generated by his 1992 election to his father’s old congress seat, he has not created any waves in legislation or public debate.” Even a long-time ally, Joseph Estrada, found him unremarkable; in September 1994, the Standard quoted the then vice president saying, “I think Bongbong Marcos still needs more experience; I would advise him to seek one more term in Congress” rather than gunning for a Senate seat. Based on some accounts, such as the editorial of the February 6-12 issue of WE Forum, Congressman Marcos was best known for filing a resolution urging President Ramos to allow Ferdinand Marcos Sr.’s body to lie in state in Malacañang and to give the long-dead dictator a state funeral; with less than half voting “yea,” the House did not adopt the resolution.

Framed collage on NYC and Bongbong, Bahay Ugnayan, photo by Larah Del Mundo
Framed collage on NYC and Bongbong, Bahay Ugnayan. Photo by Larah Del Mundo

(Dis)information Center

After Bongbong, perhaps the most vocal propagator of the myth that the current president “founded” the National Youth Commission is Ronald Gian Cardema, current chairman of the NYC and leader of the Duterte Youth and the Kabataan for Bongbong Movement. Inside the Bahay Ugnayan, one of the Malacañang Heritage Mansions made accessible to the public in May this year, is a framed photo-collage of pictures showing Cardema with Bongbong (and Imee), emblazoned with the words “Salamat, Mahal na Pangulo! Principal Author of Republic Act No. 8044, the law that created the National Youth Commission.”

This is one of many lies inside what is essentially a Bongbong Marcos museum administered by an Advisory Board chaired by the president’s Social Secretary, as per Executive Order no. 26, s. 2023. The whole heritage project, which also includes a museum for past Philippine presidents in the Teus Mansion, is attributed to the First lady, Liza Araneta Marcos. Part of Bahay Ugnayan took material from Bongbong’s defunct website (some of which, including school-related records, can still be accessed via Bongbong’s Flickr account). Among these are evidence presented or summaries of claims made by Bongbong to bolster his claim that he was cheated during the 2016 elections, including a crate marked “Iriga City, Cam Sur” and a large poster highlighting undervotes.

Poster on undervotes, Bahay Ugnayan. Photo by Larah Del Mundo
Poster on undervotes, Bahay Ugnayan. Photo by Larah Del Mundo

The museum also claims that Marcos graduated from Oxford University, and the reason he discontinued further studies at the Wharton School of Business was his election as vice governor of Ilocos Norte—both proven untrue by documentary evidence (including the Wharton transcript on display at the museum). Besides such tired claims, there is a bit of fudging done by a huge poster titled “Support Groups,” which features photos and a 786-entry list. Entries 365 to 675 are all “Solid BBM Worldwide Movement” followed by a number in sequence from 2022 to 2023; entries 141-203 are all Kasapi followed by a number from 101 to 141. Entries 717-725 all appear to be chapters of TEAM BBM 2022, while 773-779 are all chapters or reiterations of We Love Marcos Global BBM Forever. The last two entries are both Zambales Solid BBM Supporters. Among many similar entries, entry 141, 258, 267, 275, 285, 351, 765, 705, 706, 781 are “Individual,” “Member,” “Motorcycle riders,” “N/A,” “Number 3,” “Selected team leader,” “Student,” “Suffix,” “Vlogger,” and “Womens,” respectively. Marcos’s party, PFP, is simply entry 298 among other “support groups.” After cleaning up the list of bloat, it can be significantly shortened (by more than half), and make one ask exactly who were the “grassroots” supporters of the 2022 Marcos campaign.

Support Groups poster, Bahay Ugnayan. Photo by Nixcharl Noriega
Support Groups poster, Bahay Ugnayan. Photo by Nixcharl Noriega

All these (among others), Bongbong unleashed within less than a year and a half of his presidency, alongside various other supplementary actions that help give life to the myth of Marcosian greatness—from uploading a copy of the propaganda film that helped elect Ferdinand Sr. in 1965, Iginuhit ng Tadhana, in the Philippine News Agency’s YouTube channel, to removing the anniversary of the People Power Revolution from the official list of 2024 holidays only because Feb. 25, 2024 falls on a Sunday.

A Marcos monument for a dubious wartime deed to rise in Ilocos Sur
Posted on by diktaduraadmin

Originally published by Vera Files on May 16, 2023

Groundbreaking ceremony in Apatot, San Sebastian, Ilocos Sur for the Marcos monument. Photo from the Provincial Government of Ilocos Sur’s Facebook page, April 21, 2023.
Figure 1. Groundbreaking ceremony in Apatot, San Sebastian, Ilocos Sur for the Marcos monument. Photo from the Provincial Government of Ilocos Sur’s Facebook page, April 21, 2023.

A monument being built in a town in Ilocos Sur tries to connect the late president Ferdinand E. Marcos to a wartime heroic operation that has no factual record of his participation.

The designation of the landing site of the USS Gar submarine, which brought armaments that led to the defeat of the Japanese Imperial army in the same site as the Marcos monument, raises questions because a historical marker on the same operation exists in another site.

Groundbreaking ceremony in San Esteban

The monument had a groundbreaking ceremony on April 20 in San Esteban, a seaside town in Ilocos Sur.

The event was among the events during the town’s fourth Seafood Festival. In attendance were Provincial Board Member Evaristo Singson III, representing his father, Governor Jeremias “Jerry” Singson; Vice Governor Ryan Luis Singson (son of former governor Luis “Chavit” Singson); and other provincial officials.

The Facebook page of the provincial government of Ilocos Sur posted the next day about the groundbreaking ceremony but did not explain why a monument to Marcos was being built in San Esteban.

A social media report offers a sketchy justification for the monument’s erection: “A monument of former president, Major Ferdinand E. Marcos will be erected here, Apatot San Esteban Ilocos Sur.The area was the landing site of a submarine [USS Gar] carrying armaments for USAFIP-NL [United States Army Forces in the Philippines-Northern Luzon] during World War 2 that led to the downfall of Gen Tomoyoki Yamashita in Bessang Pass.”

There were two banners that stressed the significance of the occasion. One connected the building of the Marcos monument to the rehabilitation and improvement of the USS Gar landing site.

The other banner welcomed Sen. Maria Imelda Josefa “Imee” R. Marcos along with Gov. Jerry Singson, Cong. Kristine Singson-Meehan, former Gov. Chavit Singson, and Candon City Mayor Eric Singson. Sen. Marcos did not attend the groundbreaking ceremony.

Another marker of USS Gar landing in Santiago Cove

Forty years ago, on December 27, 1982, then president Ferdinand E. Marcos himself, with First Lady Imelda Romualdez Marcos, led the dedication of a marble marker from the National Historical Institute (NHI) (now the National Historical Commission of the Philippines, or NHCP) to commemorate the landing in San Esteban of USS Gar. That marker was destroyed in a typhoon in 2001. A new one was put in its place, fronting a replica in concrete of the USS Gar. The new Marcos monument will be built beside the marker and the Gar replica.

Figure 2. The current memorial to the USS Gar landing in San Sebastian, Ilocos Sur. Photo from Ilocos Sur Gov. Jerry Singson’s Facebook page, November 4, 2020.
Figure 2. The current memorial to the USS Gar landing in San Sebastian, Ilocos Sur. Photo from Ilocos Sur Gov. Jerry Singson’s Facebook page, November 4, 2020.

Rendered in all caps, the text of the present marker, which almost perfectly reiterates that of the older one, reads:

Twice surfacing at Santiago Cove on November 21, 1944, the USS Gar landed on this beach commandoes of the Army of the United States with equipment, arms, ammunitions and supplies led by Captains William Vaughn and William Farell were Lts. Fred Behan and Donald Jamison with two other Americans and Larry Guzman with other Filipinos of the First Filipino regiment. The landing was effected by USAFIP, NL under Col. Russell W. Volckmann with other paramilitary and guerilla units by order of Volckmann, Jamison and Maj. Ferdinand E. Marcos sneaked through the cordon of Gen. Tomoyuki Yamashita to an air strip in Isabela and flew to Camp Spencer.

Besides using numerals instead of spelled-out numbers in two instances, the previous marker clearly placed a period between “supplies” and “led” and one between “guerrilla units” and “by order of Volckmann,” avoiding the current run-on sentences. But evidence shows that the text has bigger problems than the grammatical variety.

The 1982 NHI marker on the landing of USS Gar in San Esteban, Ilocos Sur bears significant errors that should put in question why the marker is in San Esteban in the first place. It is also laced with a lie traceable to Marcos that vested in himself a certain wartime exploit that vaguely connected him to the submarine landing but is categorically unsupported by any factual and historical evidence.

Adding doubt to the 1982 marker is the existence of another historical marker commemorating the Gar landing where it actually happened, in Santiago Cove, Sabangan, Santiago, Ilocos Sur.

Submarine bearing supplies for resistance forces

In mid-1944, as the United States-led Allied Forces made its way from Australia and the southwest Pacific islands to reconquer the Philippines from the forces of the Japanese empire, efforts were made to communicate, consolidate, and supply the guerilla resistance forces in Northern Philippines, or specifically the United States Army Forces in the Philippines-Northern Luzon (USAFIP-NL), then under the command of Col. Russell W. Volckmann.

Patricia Murphy Minch, whose father, Col. Arthur Philip Murphy served as Volckmann’s chief of staff and intelligence officer, wrote in the The Luckiest Guerilla, a biography of her father, that a rumor about a submarine bearing supplies for resistance forces in Luzon was received by her father with “far greater significance” than the news on the radio of US forces’ impressive victories as it fought its way back to the Philippines.

In Volckmann’s view, as expressed in his wartime biography, American Guerilla, by Mike Guardia, “Resupply meant relief from chronic shortages that had plagued them since Bataan. If the supply train remained unbroken from now until the Allied invasion of Luzon, Volckmann and his men would no longer have to rely on scavenging from the Japanese or continue borrowing from the local civilians.”

On August 27, 1944, the USS Stingray (SS-186) that departed from Australia on August 16 reached Caunayan Bay, Bangui Bay, Pagudpud, Ilocos Norte under hostile conditions. As noted by the Naval History and Heritage Command of the US Navy, despite the odds, “Special mission successfully accomplished 27 August 1944 after undergoing depth charge attacks and being lightly worked over while reconnoitering designated spot. Landed all personnel and 60% of supplies. Forced to depart after 24 assorted Jap armed sea trucks passed spot.”

Lt. Jose Valera led the fifteen-man radio and demolitions team that came from USS Stingray. But it was not until November 19, 1944 that Valera and his team were able to contact Volckmann’s headquarter in Benguet.

An NHCP marker of the Stingray landing, sponsored by the Philippine Veterans Bank, was installed at the landing site in 2018.

After USS Stingray’s landing, another submarine was supposed to deliver supplies to the USAFIP-NL by September 1944. This did not happen. Years later, Volckmann would learn that the submarine that was supposed to do the supply run was sunk by the US’s own Air Force.

Another attempt was made in October 1944. It was again a failure. Then came the USS Gar (SS-206), the second submarine to venture along the Ilocos coast to deliver supplies to the USAFIP-NL headed by Volckmann.

Figure 3. The USS Gar (SS-206), August 19, 1945. From US National Archives.
Figure 3. The USS Gar (SS-206), August 19, 1945. From US National Archives.

The 1982 NHI marker at Apatot, San Esteban states that the USS Gar twice surfaced at Santiago Cove on November 21, 1944. The date in the marker is off by one day. USS Gar’s “Report of War Patrol Number Fourteen” dated November 30, 1944 states that its journey to the Ilocos coast started on November 13, 1944 at Mios Woendi Lagoon (part of the Schouten Islands of Papua province, Indonesia), then a forward base of the US Navy.

When it left Mios Woendi Lagoon, USS Gar had a load of “16 army personnel, 4 officers and 12 men, and 30 tons of material” with “Captain W.D. Vaughan, 0-23978, USA in charge of party.”

On November 20, 1944 it delivered supplies to resistance fighters in Mindoro, its first mission. At 5:16 a.m., November 22, 1944, USS Gar’s log reads, “Submerged off Darigayos River, the spot designated for second mission, and commenced closing the beach.”

The log was no doubt correct on the time and date it recorded, but it was mistaken about where USS Gar actually was. And it was this error that would explain why it had to surface twice in Santiago Cove, a place that is definitely not in San Esteban, Ilocos Sur nor was it Darigayos Cove in Luna, La Union.

The precise coordinates of USS Gar’s location was 17°17’02.0″N 120°24’05.0″E (this is a current rendering of the original recorded coordinates 17-17.2N, 120-24.5E). This record is at the “Submarine Activities Connected with Guerrilla Organizations” made available online by the Naval History and Heritage Command of the US Navy. The coordinates situate the USS Gar fronting the Santiago Cove at Sabangan, Santiago, Ilocos Sur.

In the failed October 1944 supply run, Volckmann had communicated to the South West Pacific Area (SWPA) command in Australia two submarine landing sites. On November 11, 1944, SWPA asked Volckmann if the same rendezvous points could be used. Volckmann, in his November 16, 1944 reply said yes. “Assure Navy that contact can be made successfully and safely at both points. Will be ready and able to make contact on and from November 22 at Point One – Darigayos Inlet and at Point Two – Santiago Cove as previously stated.”

Figure 4. Communication between Volckmann and MacArthur on the possible landing sites for USS Gar, November 16, 1944. From the MacArthur Archives.
Figure 4. Communication between Volckmann and MacArthur on the possible landing sites for USS Gar, November 16, 1944. From the MacArthur Archives.

Volckmann headed the group that waited for the USS Gar in Darigayos, while in Santiago Cove, the group was headed by Maj. George M. Barnett, sub-commander of USAFIP-NL’s second district (the provinces of La Union and southern Ilocos Sur).

It was Barnett’s group that made contact with USS Gar at 6:00 p.m., November 22, 1944. Still thinking that they were at Darigayos Cove, they asked Bartnett if he was Volckmann. Barnett told them he was not, and that they were at the secondary site.

USS Gar’s war patrol report admitted plainly the error in their navigation. “We were amazed to learn that we were at our alternate spot. (Santiago Cove) Later developments proved that we were extremely fortunate to have contacted this party first.”

“Due to the scarcity of men and boats Barnett cannot unload us tonight, however Major Volkman [sic] down at the primary spot was thought to have sufficient men and boats to take care of us. He also thought that Volkman had some intelligence information which he wanted us to take back.” The log continued: “In hopes of completing the mission as soon as possible it was decided to take Major Barnett and four body guards aboard and proceed to the primary spot to contact and unload with Major Volkman.”

Before departing for Darigayos on November 22, Barnett informed them that “there were three small Jap patrol boats 4 miles to the north . . . at San Esteban which patrol 200 yards off the reef parallel to the coast.” Further proof that in the accounts of those involved first-hand in the landing, they were not in San Esteban.

At 9:00 p.m., Gar was at Darigayos. A party led by Barnett was made to land to look for Volckmann’s group. They were not there. Instead, there were Japanese patrols in the area.

“Spot One compromised completely by the enemy,” Volckmann warned the SWPA command on November 22, 1944. “Request that Spot Two be used.”

Gar went back to Santiago Cove at 1:00 a.m., November 23, 1944. The submarine remained submerged about 900 meters from the mouth of the Santiago Cove as it waited for nighttime to unload its cargo and passengers. At 5:55 p.m. Gar surfaced and moved closer to the cove. Barnett was already at hand, ready to start unloading.

USS Gar landed in Santiago Cove

In the “Calendar of Submarine Shipments to the Philippines” from the US Navy Operational Archives in Washington, DC, it is recorded that on November 23, 1944, the Gar under Lieutenant Commander Maurice “Duke” Ferrara, in “Santiago Cove, Wcoast Luzon landed 16 men and 25 tons of supplies; picked up docs [Roscoe 518].”

The following were the men who came with USS Gar: Capt FH Behan, Capt DV Jamison, T/Sgt LO Guzman, S/Sgt CB Maplia, Cpl LC Clemente, Cpl F Bermudes, S/Sgt A Villanueva, Sgt MQ Arellano, Sgt BC Alvez, Cpl Demetrio G Madrano, Cpl AA Pabros, Sgt WH Lowe, S/Sgt AB de la Pena, Capt WA Farrell, Sgt JC Bierley, Capt WD Vaughn.

By 10:00 p.m., the unloading was completed; Gar’s second mission was accomplished.

“The news of the successful submarine contact,” Volckman wrote in We Remained, “and the positive proof of it in the form of equipment from the outside . . . was a stimulus to civilians and guerillas alike. Almost overnight new spirit and greater determination were evident everywhere.”


“U.S. Submarine War Patrol Reports, 1941-1945,” War Patrol No.: Fourteenth/Fifteenth, November-December 1944. From the US National Archives.

In the logs of the Gar’s fifteenth and final war patrol in December 1944, wherein the submarine again brought cargo for USAFIP-NL, this time in Darigayos, and picked up “valuable intelligence information and documents” again in Santiago Cove, they noted that the latter mission was challenging partly because “[from] our previous mission there we know that the Japs had four small patrol vessels at San Esteban, 4 miles to the north of Santiago Cove, whose purpose was to prevent landings such as these.” It was even noted in their December 12, 1944 log that a small ship about five miles away could be seen while they were in Santiago Cove, and that it was “believed to be one of the patrol boats from San Esteban.” Certain that they were sighted, Ferrara, the submarine commander, stated that “Santiago Cove must now be considered completely compromised for missions of this nature.”

Among the sources that claim that the landing did occur in San Esteban is the “After-Battle Report: United States Army Forces in the Philippines, North Luzon Operations,” submitted by Volckmann to the Commanding General of the Army Forces Western Pacific on November 10, 1945, and the book Guerrilla Days in Northern Luzon, published by the USAFIP-NL in July 1946. The latter in fact first calls the alternative landing site as “San Sebastian, Ilocos Sur.”

The claim that the landing happened in San Esteban appears to be an error committed by Col. Volckmann; comparing Volckmann’s and the 1946 USAFIP-NL’s accounts with the Gar logs and the Seventh Fleet Intelligence Center memorandum, Volckmann also erred in the weight of the cargo carried by the Gar for USAFIP-NL (it was 30, not 20). Both the After-Battle Report and Guerrilla Days also misspell Vaughan as Vaughn, suggesting that the San Esteban marker relied mainly on erroneous Volckmann-authored or Volckmann-derived sources (including Volckmann’s earlier autobiography We Remained: Three Years Behind Enemy Lines in the Philippines, published in the US in 1954).

A correction of sorts can be found in Murphy’s biography, which describes the November 1944 landing, but makes clear that it happened in Santiago Cove. And as mentioned above, records of Volckmann’s communication with SWPA clearly indicate Santiago Cove.

No direct link between Marcos and the USS Gar

In pro-Marcos propaganda about Ferdinand Sr.’s war-time exploits, there is no direct link between Marcos and the USS Gar, save in one instance. In his commissioned autobiography, For Every Tear a Victory: Marcos of the Philippines (1964), written by American Hartzell Spence, there is a line in the book’s second chapter implying that Marcos was physically present in Ilocos Sur during the November landing: “Late in 1944 Marcos. . . made contact on a storm-swept beach one night with a United States submarine, which landed a demolition expert, Captain Jamieson, and supplies with which Marcos’ command was to blow up the mountain roads and impede the Japanese withdrawal north of Manila.” This line was reproduced in subsequent (1969, 1979) editions of the biography. The “Captain Jamieson” mentioned almost certainly refers to Donald V. Jamison, unquestionably one of the Gar commandos.

But For Every Tear contradicts itself more than half a dozen chapters later, firmly placing Marcos in Pangasinan during the November landing. This is corroborated by both pro-Marcos and more impartial sources. The very title of the book Ferdinand E. Marcos: 77 Days in Eastern Pangasinan, produced by the Philippine Constabulary Historical Committee in 1982, indicates where, in military-approved narratives, Marcos was between August and early December 1944. The two editions of Marcos: The War Years, co-authored by Cesar T. Mella, who was affiliated with the government think-tank called the President’s Center for Special Studies, and Gracianus R. Reyes, reassert that from Bulacan, aboard a “charcoal-fed chevy car” in September 1944, he proceeded to “Urdaneta. . . thence to Asingan, thence to Tayug and finally to Natividad,” all in Pangasinan, staying in the last town until December.

According to Murphy’s biography, when Marcos showed up at the 5th District USAFIP-NL camp in Isabela between late November-December 1944, the camp’s commander, Col. Romulo Manriquez, did not know what to do with him, asking Murphy for advice. Marcos had claimed that he “had been sent by General Manuel Roxas to make arrangements to supply arms to the North Luzon guerrillas.”

Marcos was also asking where First Lady Esperanza Osmeña was. On October 30, 1944, ten days after then Commonwealth President Sergio Osmeña landed with Gen. Douglas MacArthur in Leyte, on the first lady’s insistence—fearing that they would be taken hostage to Japan— Volckmann’s command rescued her and her family from Baguio. Until they rejoined President Osmeña in Dagupan in January 1945, their whereabouts must be kept a secret.

Murphy assumed Marcos was a spy and suggested a means of eliminating him. Marcos was purportedly saved by the intervention of USAFIP-NL’s G-3 (Army Operations), Col. Calixto Duque, who was familiar with Marcos’s family. Volckmann reversed Murphy’s order to eliminate Marcos, and Murphy ordered Manriquez to allow Marcos’s attachment to the 14th Infantry, but only if he was “kept under close watch.” Another version of this story, though much less flattering to Murphy, is told in For Every Tear.       

Besides For Every Tear, the most prominent book linking Marcos with the USS Gar—and only tenuously, to be very charitable—is a book by Prudencio R. Europa with the kilometric title, A Warrior’s Rendezvous with Destiny: The Filipino Soldier Dispossessed: True Story of Ferdinand E. Marcos; U.S. Submarine’s Missions Enable Luzon Guerrillas to Beat Japanese. The book was published in September 1989, shortly before Marcos’s death. Europa was, according to the book’s brief biographical note, a “newspaperman from the Deep North”—born in San Esteban, Ilocos Sur in fact—who had “followed the Marcos career” since Marcos first term in Congress (1949-1951), becoming Press Counsellor of the Embassy of the Philippines in the US in 1983.

Figure 5. Prudencio R. Europa’s A Warrior’s Rendezvous with Destiny (1989).
Figure 5. Prudencio R. Europa’s A Warrior’s Rendezvous with Destiny (1989).

Based on the acknowledgements section of Europa’s book, what he really wanted to write initially was an account solely about the purported landing of the Gar in his hometown, but it was “[the] ill-treatment of the Filipino Soldier and the martyrdom of Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos” [that] spurred [him] to go into publication.” The result is a volume (more than half of which is appendixes and pictures) that, as its title suggests, is partly a defense of Ferdinand Marcos’s war record, and partly an unconnected narrative about the Gar.

Europa listed among his sources, besides Jamison and another Gar commando, “elders of Barrio Apatot in San Esteban” who “gave recollections of that submarine landing.” He also evidently read and discussed the contents of the Gar’s fourteenth and fifteenth war patrol reports, quoting from them verbatim. Importantly, however, he misrepresented them by claiming these archival sources state that the November landing and unloading happened in San Esteban, not Santiago Cove. Nor does he state that based on those war patrol accounts, San Esteban was actually highlighted as a place to avoid for submarine landings.

Others who had read these records were more honest. In citing the logs of the Gar‘s fourteenth war patrol, Generoso Salazar, Fernando Reyes, and Leonardo Nuval, in their 1992 book World War II in North Luzon, Philippines, 1941-1945, make clear that the Gar surfaced off of Santiago Cove in November 1944.

Europa claimed that those who disembarked from the Gar in the evening of November 23, 1944 were met by members of the Women’s Auxiliary Service of the 121st Infantry. Though he does not name a source for this, it does affirm that only members of the 121st Infantry, which Marcos was never a part of, met with the Gar’s passengers. Guerrilla Days further affirms this, stating that “[the] 121st Infantry was instrumental in making contact with the submarine that landed arms, ammunitions and supplies for USAFIP, NL in November of 1944, and in bringing them to GHQ [General Headquarters], USAFIP, NL.” Guerrilla Days further states that in all of the submarine landings in November-December 1944 (the Gar made another landing, this time in Darigayos, La Union, in early December 1944), “the men of the 121st Infantry played an important part,” being the ones who “carried the supplies up mountain trails to General Headquarters of the USAFIP, NL for proper distribution to the field.”

The only time Europa mentioned Marcos as being connected to the Gar was when the president attended the San Esteban marker’s inauguration in December 1982.

Moreover, neither Marcos nor Jamison mentions the former’s presence during the November landing in other statements that they authored. Marcos does not mention it in “Ang Mga Maharlika – Its History in Brief,” one of the documents he submitted to the United States Army when he was attempting (unsuccessfully) to have the fictitious exploits of his Ang Mga Maharlika guerrilla unit recognized. Jamison, in an affidavit executed in Manila on December 31, 1982, claims that he worked closely with Marcos only while the former was attached to the 14th Infantry, specifically between January and March 1945.

Even the service record of Marcos, issued by the GHQ of the Armed Forces of the Philippines on March 4, 1996, which is included in the decidedly pro-Marcos document compilation titled Let the Marcos Truth Prevail, states that Marcos only attained the rank of major when he became affiliated with the 14th Infantry on December 12, 1944, after the Gar landings. Not a shred of credible evidence places a Major Ferdinand Marcos under the command of Volckmann before December 1944.

What then accounts for the last line of the San Esteban marker (“By order of Volckmann, Jamison and Maj. Ferdinand E. Marcos sneaked through the cordon of Gen. Tomoyuki Yamashita to an air strip in Isabela and flew to Camp Spencer”)? After thoroughly going through related pro-Marcos propaganda, it becomes clear that that line is based on a story popularized by For Every Tear that has nothing to do with the landing. Reading the marker alone, one would think that immediately after the November 1944 landing, Marcos guided Jamison through enemy territory to Camp Spencer. But Spence says this perilous trek occurred in April 1945, when both Marcos and Jamison were attached to the 14th Infantry of USAFIP-NL.

All-out propaganda

Why did the NHI deem it necessary to mention Marcos in the “San Esteban Landing” marker, if his only “connection” was an excursion with one of the Gar’s passengers several months after the landing? Some context may be helpful. In December 1982, opposition newspaper We Forum was shut down and its publisher-editor, Jose Burgos, was arrested. The paper was charged with subversion, or “conspiracy to overthrow the government through black political propaganda, agitation and advocacy of violence” because it purportedly wanted to “discredit, insult and ridicule the president to such an extent that it would inspire his assassination,” as evidenced by its publication in November 1982 of a series of articles by Bonifacio Gillego that debunked several claims about Marcos’s wartime heroism. For the same series of articles, Burgos was charged by Marcos-allied veterans with libel, not on behalf of Marcos specifically, but of all soldiers of the Philippines. Jamison’s affidavit was executed in support of Marcos’s wartime record; he testified during the preliminary investigation for the libel case in January 1983 (that case did not go beyond the PI, while the subversion case was eventually dismissed). Presumably, the historical marker, inaugurated by Marcos shortly after We Forum’s office was raided and padlocked, and a little over a week after Burgos was released on house arrest, was also connected to this propaganda effort.

Another Gar passenger who executed an affidavit in December 1982 in favor of Marcos was Larry O. Guzman, an American citizen who was born in San Esteban. Guzman’s affidavit, also included in Europa’s book, hews very closely to Jamison’s, and affirms that they met Marcos only when they were all together with the 14th Infantry, well after the landing.

Jamison and Guzman, along with USS Gar commander Ferrara and another commando, Maj. Fred Behan, were conferred “the nation’s most distinguished military awards” by Marcos on January 4, 1983, a few days after the San Esteban marker inauguration. Marcos had also conferred at least three awards to his friends Jamison and Guzman since the former became president (a February 1984 article in The Filipino American states that these were “the Gold Cross Medal, distinguished Conduct Star, and Outstanding Award Medal.”).

Though Jamison’s and Guzman’s role in helping to hasten the defeat of the occupying Japanese forces are unquestionable, their claims about their comrade Marcos deserve scrutiny. In their affidavits, Jamison and Guzman assert that Marcos was always consulted on intelligence and combat ops, and even led demolition missions and heroically engaged enemy combatants. Official records of the 14th Infantry, USAFIP-NL, show that Marcos was designated regimental S-5, or civil affairs officer, at the time of the 1945 combat engagements involving Marcos that Jamison and Guzman supposedly witnessed. A compilation of 14th Infantry correspondences among the Philippine Archives Collection of the US National Archives shows the kind of work Marcos actually did at that time; the subject of the letter, dated February 8, 1945, was “Property Damaged, Burnt or Destroyed,” and it was a comment on a fragmentary report, not based on his own observations. Another letter, by a Captain Juan. Ma. Sabalburo of the 14th Infantry, dated 15 January 1945, talks about the letter writer’s trial (presumably a court martial), which is being handled by a Lt. Manaois and Major Ferdinand Marcos.

In one reconstructed roster of the 14th Infantry, which is among the documents submitted for the unit’s recognition by the US Army, Marcos is listed as a major who became a member of the unit on December 12, 1944, and toward the war’s end was assigned to the unit’s headquarters. In Guerrilla Days, an appended station list includes Major Marcos (misspelled “Farcos, Ferdinand”), assigned to serve as Assistant Adjutant General, which meant that he was principally an administrative officer. This is further affirmed in Col. Murphy’s biography, wherein Marcos is described as having served as a “civil affairs officer,” attached to headquarters until the war concluded. Finally, one of Gillego’s We Forum articles—which cites information from sources such as Capt. Vicente Rivera, staff and line officer of the 14th Infantry—mentions that by May to June 1945, Marcos was “in the relative safety of USAFIP, NL headquarters,” away from the Battle of Bessang Pass, which he allegedly participated in.

A book of lies      

To reiterate: there is no link between Marcos and the landing of the USS Gar in Ilocos Sur in November 1944, besides an outright lie and a claim of an adventure with one of the Gar commandos, which is contrary to official records and communications, both of which are found in a notoriously unreliable and self-contradicting source: Spence’s For Every Tear a Victory.

For Every Tear starts with  a falsehood: “Ferdinand Edralin Marcos was in such a hurry to be born that his father, who was only eighteen years old himself, had to act as midwife.” Mariano Marcos was several months over twenty years old when Ferdinand Sr. was born.

Besides false stories about Marcos’s wartime activities, the book is also responsible for propagating the lie that Marcos had the highest bar exam result in history, but had his score reduced by the bar examiners.

Moreover, the most authoritative sources on the matter show that there should not even be a marker on the November Gar landing in San Esteban, let alone one that unnecessarily mentions Marcos. Curiously, the online National Registry of Historic Sites and Structures of the Philippines does not include the San Esteban Landing marker, either among still existing sites and structures or those that had been delisted or otherwise removed. Given the evidence presented here, NHCP may intervene, invoking one of the mandates of the Commission stated in Republic Act no. 10086: “actively [engaging] in the settlement or resolution of controversies or issues relative to historical personages, places, dates and events.”

Even the Department of Tourism can take an interest in the matter, given that because of Republic Act no. 11408, Santiago Cove is officially a “tourist destination”; as such, its “development shall be prioritized” by the DOT. Emphasizing the place of Santiago Cove in the liberation of the Philippines would likely help boost tourism there. Consider that there is already a marker to the landing in Santiago Cove, though one without the NHI/NCHP’s imprimatur.

Devoid of historical basis, the monument is an addition to a growing list of permanent memorialization of Ferdinand Marcos Sr. unveiled after his remains were reinterred at the Libingan ng mga Bayani in 2016. The list includes the NHCP historical marker placed in 2017 under a repositioned statue in Batac, Ilocos Norte; a bronze statue of Marcos erected in Banna, Ilocos Norte sometime in 2019; a statue of Marcos in Paniqui, Tarlac, which was installed in August 2019; and new commemorative marker at the Pantabangan Dam in Nueva Ecija, which features a huge portrait of Marcos.