Month: May 2025

If her “opposition” to her brother is simply an expression of sisterly concern, beyond the recently concluded elections, what will Imee do if helping the Dutertes greatly harms her brother, or her family’s reputation, which she has labored for decades to rehabilitate?

Following the 2025 polls, it appears that Imee Marcos will retain her Senate seat, which means that she has still not lost an election since she first ran for public office in 1984—a feat her father, mother, and brother failed to achieve.

However, based on partial and unofficial results, she is last among the winning twelve senatorial candidates, and she received millions of votes less in this election than in 2019, when she won her first term. A win is a win, one might say. Moreover, she will continue to be a person of influence and consequence in the ongoing conflict between her kin—headed by her brother, Bongbong Marcos, the president—and the Dutertes, principally represented by former president Rodrigo Duterte, currently an inmate at the International Criminal Court (ICC) detention center in The Hague, and Vice President Sara Duterte.

Arguably, Imee would have lost the election if not for Sara’s eleventh hour endorsement of her candidacy. Six months back, she declared herself independent from her brother’s senate slate, but still joined a number of Alyansa sorties when the official campaign season started in February 2025.

Can she really break away from her brother? A Vera Files article has listed the various ways she had differed in opinion with, if not outright contradicted, her presidential ading. However, at the Alyansa kickoff rally in Laoag, Ilocos Norte, held on Feb. 11, speaking in Ilocano, Imee proudly traced back her family’s public service lineage to her grandfather, former Ilocos Norte diputado Mariano R. Marcos, and stretched it up to her son, governor Matthew Marcos Manotoc, and Bongbong’s son, Representative Sandro Marcos. She emphasized that she and her brother were Marcoses, thanking the crowd for their support then, now, and, implicitly, forever; “Marcos latta”—Marcos pa rin, Marcos still, she said.

Looking back at her history as a candidate for public office, we see that Imee tends to prioritize the wishes and whims of her family first to determine her political direction. This history may give clues about where Imee will go following her hairline win, even if that win came as a result of siding with an opposing political dynasty.

During the dictatorship

Before 1984, despite having many appointments in government, most prominently as head of the Kabataang Barangay Foundation, Inc., Imee repeatedly said that she will not run for public office, or words to that effect. Seemingly supporting her stance, as reported in the February 8-9 issue of Ang Pahayagang Malaya, Ferdinand Sr. told newsmen that the administration’s Kilusang Bagong Lipunan (KBL) party “will not allow the relatives of incumbent Batasan Pambansa members and local government officials to run in the May 14 [1984] elections ‘unless there is no other alternative’ to prevent the establishment of political dynasties.” He noted that his children were being courted to run by party leaders, but Irene was underaged, Imee “does not want to enter politics,” and he had “discouraged” Bongbong, then governor of Ilocos Norte, from gunning for a seat in the Assembly.

A little over a month later, the Agence France-Presse reported that President Marcos had “turned down many popular petitions for his daughter Imee, his eldest child, and Ferdinand Jr., governor of Ilocos Norte Province, to be KBL candidates in the May 14 polls.”

But AFP noted a shift a few days later: sources from the KBL said Imee had “succumbed to pressures from supporters, specially from her Kabataang Barangay (National Youth) people.” Thus, a short time after Ferdinand Sr. claimed that he was opposed to political dynasties, Imee ran to be a representative of Ilocos Norte at the Regular Batasang Pambansa.

According to a UPI report published in Pacific Daily News on March 30, 1984, citing Deputy Prime Minister Jose Roño, Imee’s father asked her to run “to head off a ‘bloody’ feud between Marcos’ uncle and nephew who both wanted the slot on the ticket.” It is unclear who the nephew was, but the uncle was likely Simeon Marcos Valdez, another Ilocano politician-cum-war veteran like Ferdinand Sr. Apparently, Bongbong had been asked to run for the seat first, but he declined. Both Imee and Bongbong were, of course, members of KBL.

Reluctant candidate though she supposedly was, Imee won, becoming a member of parliament, chairing the Batasan’s Committee on Youth. Within her first year as an unremarkable MP, she was quoted as saying that her father should step down after his current term. According to an Agence France-Presse report, published in various newspapers, including the South China Morning Post and the Straits Times in December 1984, Imee said that “her father’s announcement that he would run again in 1987 was ‘an uncharitable decision’”; “‘I don’t think he’s aware sometimes he has a family,’” she added. Come the 1986 snap election, however, she fully supported her father’s reelection bid.

The documentary titled People Power: The Filipino Experience has footage of Imee campaigning for her father’s fourth reelection. She implied that even she was more qualified to be president than her father’s rival, “mere housewife” Corazon Aquino: “Hindi kailanman humawak ng anumang tungkulin sa bayan. Kahit chairman man lamang ng Kabataang Barangay! Paano ka naman makakagawa ng pagbabago sa bayan ang isang walang karanasan at walang alam sa pagpapalakad ng gobyerno,” Imee declaimed.

Numerous sources claimed that Imee was a leader of her father’s reelection campaign. As early as December 1985, according to Business Day, quoting “highly-placed sources,” Imee had reportedly been assigned to “take over the presidential and vice-presidential campaign in Metro Manila,” principally using a “reactivated” Kabataang Barangay as “foot soldiers.” According to an article published in Ang Pahayagang Malaya on January 22, 1986, quoting Ross Tipon, head of the opposition coalition Unido, “Member of Parliament Imee Marcos-Manotoc, recently held a dialog with Laoag City Mayor Rodolfo Fariñas and barangay captains to ‘counteract the growing threat to the Marcos candidacy in Ilocos Norte from the youth sector,’ which resulted in “threats of bodily harm against students and youth volunteers [of the opposition] carried out by well-known Laoag City thugs.”

Imee also made the headlines for purportedly being the target of an assassination attempt while she was out campaigning for her father, though accounts corroborating the incident were scant. A headline from a January 8, 1986 Agence France-Presse report stated it factually: “Man with Gun Arrested Near Marcos’ Campaigning Daughter.”

Nothing she did during the 1986 election helped prevent the end of the Marcos dictatorship.

After Edsa

 After Ferdinand Sr.’s ouster in February 1986, Imee joined her family in Hawaii for a short time, until she, her then husband Tommy Manotoc, and their children fled from the United States, relocating to Morocco and reportedly spending some time in Portugal, to avoid legal trouble. She was the last of the (living) Marcoses (Ferdinand Sr. died in September 1989) to return to the Philippines in December 1991. According to the Manila Standard, immediately after her return, when “[asked] if she had any political plans in the future, Imee said categorically that she still hadn’t made up her mind.”

Between then and the publication of articles about her possible political comeback in the late 1990s, she was busy with the cases against her and family, spending a few years with her husband and their children as a “resident” in Singapore—through which she successfully prevented the enforcement of the US court decision to pay damages to the mother of Archimedes Trajano, found dead after questioning Imee’s leadership of the Kabataang Barangay—grieving for her father after his body was flown back to the Philippines in 1993, and splitting up with her husband; she ceased to be “Imee Marcos-Manotoc” when she campaigned to become the congressional representative of the second district of Ilocos Norte in 1998.

 In October 1996—over a year after her mother was elected representative of the first district of Leyte and after Bongbong failed to win a seat in the Senate—Imee flew back to the Philippines from Singapore. In the same month, newspapers such as the Manila Standard bannered her political plans, which apparently stirred up the post-Edsa political order in Ilocos Norte. It was initially suggested that she would run for the first district seat, but she eventually went for the second, going head to head with her “grand uncle,” Simeon Marcos Valdez. She won handily, even if Valdez reportedly had the backing of his nephew, then outgoing President Fidel Ramos.

 The outcome of the 1998 elections was overall agreeable to the Marcoses, to say the least. Though their matriarch Imelda gave up her second attempt to secure the presidency, the candidate they supported, Marcos loyalist Joseph Estrada, became chief executive. And besides Imee, Bongbong also became a local government official, winning back the governorship of Ilocos Norte. Both Imee and Bongbong would hold their positions for three consecutive terms (1998-2007), while their mother seemingly retired from politics.

Reluctant politician, dutiful child

Imelda seemed particularly emboldened by the turn of events. In December 1998, the Philippine Daily Inquirer serialized her infamous interview with Christine Herrera, where she claimed that her family “practically owned everything in the Philippines.” Peter Goodspeed of the Canadian newspaper National Post, noted Congresswoman Imee’s response to her mother’s claim: “‘We love her dearly,’ she said with a nervous laugh during a television interview, ‘but she is wild and crazy, and it’s very exciting to watch. But let’s see.’”

 With her “wild and crazy” mother not exactly helping to draw sympathy for her family, why did perennially reluctant candidate Imee return to the political arena? In a June 1997 interview published in Lifestyle Asia, Imee said: “There seems to be this obligation to return to the family firm, but at the moment, I’m very much of two minds. I’m a very reluctant politician.” In November 1999, a little over a year after she won her congressional seat, Imee was interviewed by Marites Sioson for the San Francisco-based publication Filipinas. Point blank, she was asked, “Why did you run?” Her response: “It was largely a duty-based decision. They couldn’t come up with another candidate in Ilocos Norte, and when my brother was campaigning, I was asked to pitch in.” She claimed that she “more or less signed on as a six-year contract because you can’t achieve anything in three years,” suggesting that her reelection was guaranteed.

She did win a second term. During that term, in an interview for the magazine Flip, published in April 2003, Imee said, “I’m a very reluctant politician but also a dutiful child. Basically my brother bludgeoned me into it, and my deal with the family was, OK, two terms. Three terms is useless, one term is too short to do any good. But that’s it. I’m the type that reads a lousy book to the very end all because I started it. So now nandyan na ako so kailangan panindigan na.”

Such statements may have contributed to the belief that Imee would present herself as a candidate for higher office, specifically the Senate, in 2004. By then, Imee had been identified as a member of the opposition against an administration led by Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, who, in January 2001, acceded to the presidency after the “constructive resignation” of Estrada following “Edsa Dos.” Being a member of the opposition, Imee spun one of the most significant court decisions ordering the return of her family’s ill-gotten wealth, the Renato Corona-penned Republic v. Sandiganbayan, promulgated in July 2003, as an instance of politicking.

Imee told the Philippine Daily Inquirer at that time that she was “‘seriously considering’ running for senator” in 2004, since she had been “‘going around the country, and [she was] very, very well received naman.” In October 2003, she told the Philippine Daily Inquirer that she and her brother “inherited a tremendous amount of baggage”—as if they were not themselves direct participants in the Marcos dictatorship—such that running as a Marcos was a handicap. “Well, all I have to say is give us a chance and maybe you will get to know us better,” she pleaded.

Apparently, more than one coalition was interested in including her in their 2004 senate slates, including Raul Roco’s Aksyon Demokratiko (supposedly they wanted her along with an Aquino scion, then representative Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III) and the Fernando Poe Jr.-led Koalisyon ng Nagkakaisang Pilipino. Though many thought that Imee was a shoe-in for the Senate, she ultimately decided to run for reelection in the Lower House instead.

 As relayed in an Inquirer article dated January 9, 2004, Bongbong explained his sister’s decision thusly: “For a candidate to run for the Senate is one thing, and for a Marcos to run for the Senate is another thing….The possibility of being cheated is already a concern for [Koalisyon standard-bearer] FPJ; what more us?” Bongbong was speaking from perceived experience, given his unwavering belief that cheating had marred his 1996 attempt to become the first Marcos elected to national office after 1986.

Imee’s third term at the House ended in mid-2007. Throughout her stay in Congress, besides her appearances in magazines, one reader of the Inquirer noted that she had become a “talk show fixture.” Recalling her Kabataang Barangay days, she continued to portray herself as a staunch opponent of US military presence in the Philippines. In her last term, she was appointed a member of the powerful Commission on Appointments as the minority bloc representative. Though it was against her family’s interests, she did not “aggressively” block nor lobby against the first iteration of the bill to give reparations to human rights violations victims during the Marcos dictatorship, according to then Akbayan partylist representative Etta Rosales.

A betrayal, on Imelda’s orders?

In 2005, she was also one of the prominent signatories of an impeachment complaint, whose lead complainant was KBL stalwart Oliver Lozano, against President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. The complaint paved the way for photo opportunities among Imee and legislators of the left-wing Makabayan bloc, echoing an earlier magazine photoshoot that she had with “fellow opposition” members Teddy Boy Locsin and Satur Ocampo.

However, during the vote of the House regarding the complaint, Imee was a no-show, contributing to the junking of the articles of impeachment. In May 2006, Imee said that she was absent during the vote because her mother told her to be. Speculation was rife that the Marcoses were working out a deal with Macapagal-Arroyo to have Ferdinand Sr. buried at the Libingan ng mga Bayani, but no such deal was reached.

Thus, by the time her stint in Congress ended, Imee seemed less famous for being a Marcos than being an outspoken legislator-cum-celebrity, who became somewhat palatable even to Marcos critics because of her stance against an unpopular president and her policies. She was again thought of as a senatoriable; in one pre-election poll, conducted by the Ibon Foundation in October 2006, Imee ranked third among a list of 60 possible candidates. Apparently, her “winnability” was insufficient to convince her to run at that time. In fact, she opted not to run for anything at all in 2007.

A break from politics, not from being a Marcos

The Filipino Express, a US-based periodical, published an article titled “Imee Quits Politics to Write about Father” on June 25, 2007, a little over a month after that year’s elections. She rebutted claims that she was stepping away from politics because her partner, Singaporean Mark Chua, told her to; apparently, her sister-in-law, Bongbong’s wife, Liza Araneta Marcos, was the source of the rumor. “In truth, he [Chua] wanted me to run,” Imee said. During a press conference in Ilocos Norte, she stated: “I’ve always been a reluctant politician, but I seem to be drawn back into politics time and again.” Because of her “reluctance”—or perhaps the family’s belief that they could flit in and out of politics in their northern fiefdom with ease, so secure is their control over the province—her brother decided to support the candidacy of their cousin, Michael Keon, for the governorship of Ilocos Norte, while Bongbong himself successfully replaced Imee in Congress. Freed up from playing politico, Imee claimed that she was going to fulfill an assignment given to her by her late father, to “write about his life and works during his two-decade administration.”

Imee’s writing project was still ongoing as of December 2008, according to Manuel Alba, Ferdinand Sr.’s former budget minister, in an interview with professors Teresa Encarnacion Tadem, Cayetano Paderanga, and Yutaka Katayama. But to this day, Imee has not released a book about her father that she wrote herself; thus far, the only book she has (co-)authored is PinakBEST! Recipes from the Marcos Kitchen and More (2022), published by IPROD, Inc., of which she was (is?) “officer-president.” Soon after her 2007 “retirement” from politics, however, seven books, published by the Marcos Presidential Center, which was headed by Imee, were launched on July 7, 2007, or 07-07-07—seven being Ferdinand Sr.’s lucky number. All these books—authored by eminent persons such as political scientist Remigio Agpalo and historian Samuel Tan—were meant to portray Ferdinand Sr.’s rule in a positive light. It seems likely that they were written and set for publication while Imee was still a member of the Lower House.

Besides helping to sanitize her father’s dictatorship, during her second political interregnum, Imee also tried to help reclaim her family’s wealth. A few weeks after the launch of the pro-Marcos books, Imee asked the Securities and Exchange Commission to halt the stock offering of GMA Network, claiming that the shares owned by the Duavits, one of the network’s major shareholders, were actually her father’s. Imee’s letter-complaint was disregarded by the SEC, and the initial public offer of GMA proceeded. In her complaint, Imee practically admitted that her father had numerous “dummies” who held stocks for him, somewhat supporting her mother’s claim that they “own everything,” as well as giving further evidence that Ferdinand Sr. circumvented constitutional limitations on his income when he was president.

Imee would also pursue other interests, specifically in film. A few days after her SEC filing, she launched the Creative Media and Film Society of the Philippines, or CreaM, a multi-media production outfit. She described herself as “citizen Imee,” “Kaya mas marami na akong magiging oras for this organization,” to Ruel Mendoza of the blog Commuter Express. In her capacity as head of CreaM, she became an annual fixture of the Philippine Youth Congress in Information Technology, which, at least in 2008 and 2009, brought her back to UP Diliman as a resource person. CreaM was not entirely apolitical, however; in August 2009, it co-produced the animated film Ligtas Likas for then Senator Loren Legarda, and around September that year, created a website for Bongbong Marcos, bongbongm.com, as well as campaign videos for his successful 2010 senate run.

Returning to politics for the family’s sake (again)

Imee herself—as always, so she says, reluctantly—ran for elected office once more in 2010, this time to be governor of Ilocos Norte, against her cousin Michael Keon. The reason was, again, a mix of filial obligation and political strategy: Bongbong was then a Nacionalista, having ditched KBL a year before, while Keon was a member of another party. Keon was not supporting Nacionalista’s standard bearer, Manny Villar. Later on, during the campaign season, Keon claimed that he was the “adopted candidate” of the Noynoy Aquino-led Liberal Party. Imee blamed Keon for her return; “Kasalanan niya ito e kasi kung gusto ko sana maging gobernador 2007 wala naman akong kalaban,” GMANews.TV quoted her as saying shortly before the 2010 elections. “It looked like Bongbong’s candidacy would be compromised and we couldn’t allow that. And it was also a direct challenge to my father’s legacy here in the province so that was also untenable,” she rationalized.

Recruited to run for Imee and Bongbong’s old House seat was their mother Imelda. All three of them won. Imee would remain governor of Ilocos Norte for three terms. Among her first acts was to launch a tourism campaign, “Paoay Kumakaway!” Closely involved in the campaign was her own production outfit, CreaM.

During her third and last term as governor, she was once more painted to be a senatoriable by pundits and PR people, considering that the Marcoses were at the time allied with the president, Rodrigo Duterte. In 2017, Imee claimed that her family had not yet discussed the possibility of her running for senator in 2019, as all of them were still focused on Bongbong’s electoral protest, which he launched after he lost the vice presidency to Leni Robredo. In early 2018, she was sending out feelers to the electorate, saying that she was considering a senate run because her brother decided not to attempt a return to the Senate in 2019,  and claiming that the north (Ilocanos?) still need representation in the Upper Chamber.    

According to GMA News, when she filed her COC for senator in October 2018, she said, “Most of the candidates are incumbent senators, so I figured there should be a representative for the local government who will push for helping the farmers and bringing down food prices.” Her brother, children, and mother accompanied her during the filing of her COC.

Thus, though supported by her family, unlike in previous election cycles, Imee did not portray herself as being pushed to run by a parent or her brother in 2019. Political scientist Maria Ela Atienza, however, noted that the family likely wanted to remain nationally relevant, as Bongbong becoming a senator “was not enough to leave a lasting impression.” Imee won—the third Senator Marcos after Ferdinand Sr. and Jr.—weathering accusations of misuse of tobacco excise tax proceeds while she was governor and clear evidence that she had been lying profusely about her academic credentials.

Perhaps having a Marcos in the Senate did help Bongbong win the presidency in 2022. Imee certainly did have a role in setting up what led to the Bongbong-Sara Duterte “Uniteam” tandem, besides supposedly providing crucial initial support that led to the Dutertes’ rise to the national political arena. In 2021, Imee claimed that it was Sara who convinced Bongbong to run for president. In 2023, Imee affirmed Sara’s claim that the former convinced the latter to run for vice president alongside her brother. Sara reiterated this in her October 18, 2024 press conference, adding that Imee purportedly told her that the tandem was necessary to beat Leni Robredo. From being pushed and pulled by family, Imee apparently tried her hand at playing political matchmaker and kingmaker during the 2022 elections and succeeded—to a certain extent.

A few days before Sara’s revelatory press conference, during the October 10 Pandesal Forum with Wilson Lee Flores, Imee said, “Hindi ko naman first choice ang pulitika pero napilitan at ‘yun ang utos ng mga kababayan ko sa Ilocos Norte. Napilitan akong tumakbo kahit na hindi ko naman kagustuhan. Pero ganyan talaga eh.” Forty years on after first claiming to be “napilitan,” Imee still claimed to be reluctantly heeding a call of duty, but more in response to vox populi than vox Imelda. Heaven forbid that her reasons for running were the preservation of her family’s political gains and a reasonable chance of winning.

In the lead up to the 2025 elections, with her friend Sara beside her, Imee’s stated reasons for staying in the race seemed a lot more vague: she is, supposedly following her father’s footsteps, #IMEEnanindigan, who stood up for what is right, and she will fight for the downtrodden and those deprived of justice—part of the message is that she will fight for the oppressed Dutertes. In the final stretch of the campaign, she seemed to reconcile her allegiance to her (immediate) family with her partiality for the Dutertes by making a bold claim: “Ang gobyerno ngayon [under her brother] ay hindi Marcos. Ang gobyerno ngayon ay Romualdez [presumably referring to her cousin, House speaker Martin Romualdez] at Araneta [likely referring to Bongbong’s wife, Liza Araneta-Marcos].” Gatekeepers supposedly keep Bongbong from heeding, or even hearing, Imee’s sisterly counsel. Her brother and the Dutertes may be enemies at the moment, but that doesn’t mean she considers herself an enemy of her brother as well.

In fact, during a press conference held on April 29, Imee insisted that she has never quarreled with her brother; “yung mga amuyong sa Palasyo, mga nariyan, mga lulong, ayun, sila, sila po ang ating kaaway.” In an earlier press conference, held on March 27, she said that she was always her brother’s manang (elder sister), and “mula pa noong bata kami parati naman siyang pinagbibilin ng tatay ko na alalayan, ang problema hindi ko na magampanan at maraming humaharang, hindi nakikinig, hindi ko alam.”

And what sort of advice did she dispense? In 1982, during an interview with Marra PL. Lanot, Imee had this to say about her brother, then vice governor of Ilocos Norte and special assistant to the president: “My brother is much more relaxed, and he enjoys life. He has no scruples perhaps, a little less conscious about having a good time. I’m always worried that this is not quite the best thing to do.”

Could it be that in Imee’s eyes, steering her brother in the right direction is a fulfillment of her filial duties, and she is best positioned to do so as a senator? If her “opposition” to her brother is simply an expression of sisterly concern, beyond the recently concluded elections, what will Imee do if helping the Dutertes greatly harms her brother, or her family’s reputation, which she has labored for decades to rehabilitate?

People Power—truthfully against tyranny and dictatorship—is still alive. And it is stirring.

By virtue of Proclamation no. 727, s. 2024, Feb. 25, 2025, the anniversary of the Edsa People Power Revolution, was declared a “special (working) day” by President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. The year before, Feb. 25 was not included in the list of national holidays at all, because, as per the Office of the President, it “[fell] on a Sunday” thus it “coincides with the rest day for most workers and laborers.”

Bongbong did not issue a statement regarding the day he deemed “special,” but not sufficiently so to become a national holiday. During a press conference on the day itself, Palace Press Officer Claire Castro stated that, sans a statement from the president, the designation of the day itself “means a lot,” as it encourages people to commemorate the “Edsa People Power” if they feel the need to. None of the journalists present asked if that meant that some people who wanted to participate in commemorative activities would have to miss work to do so.

Of course, it is perfectly understandable why the president does not consistently value the Edsa revolution. Bongbong had spoken about the events of February 1986 many times before, seemingly alternating between conciliatory and hostile, but most of the time, he has been dismissive of the events that led to his father’s ouster and their family’s exile. For decades, Bongbong has insisted that their departure from Malacañang was a tactical retreat, and not because civilians—each one occupying a few square feet of open public street, unprotected by either arms or armor—were eliminating their chances of military victory.

While in exile

In 1989, before returning from the United States and reinserting himself into Philippine politics, Bongbong already had plenty to say about the People Power revolution. Only that he, like other members of his family, refused to call it “people power,” or even a revolution. In interview footage taken before Marcos Sr. died (but uploaded to YouTube only in June 2022 by the family of Arturo Aruiza, a close Marcos aide), thirty-something year-old Bongbong said,

“It [Edsa] was very well done, very well organized; I’m sure there was a core group in that who believed there were mistakes in my father’s administration for which I’m sure people were hurt, but I do not think, and I didn’t think then and I do not think now, that that was representative of the majority of the 54 million Filipinos then, I still don’t think so. . . . First of all there was no revolution, I never saw a revolution, we left because we did not want to kill fellow Filipinos. We left the Palace to go to Ilocos. We were tricked into coming to Hawaii. And I don’t see in that revolution, I cannot see how it constitutes a revolution.” (underlining added)

Bongbong also mused, “I think what happened in ’86 was a failure of the American system. I think there were personalities or cliques within the system that decided at some point to put us away.” He called Edsa a mistake of both the United States and the Philippines. He also asserted, a little over three years after they left the Philippines in dire economic straits: “The plight of the average Filipino has worsened. . . . Life is harder, people are going hungry. The communist insurgency grows worse by the day no matter what they say. Peace and order in the cities, in the countryside is getting worse.” Never mind that people were already going hungry and had difficulty accessing basic necessities well before 1986 (with claims of rice self-sufficiency being false); that the NPA was already growing significantly before Marcos was deposed; and there were already peace and order issues and unrest nationwide, highlighted during the 1986 snap elections.

Much of this was a reiteration of claims made by or for Ferdinand Sr. before he died, as can be read in part of the introduction to his last book, A Trilogy on the Transformation of Philippine Society, and an aide memoire sent to Ronald Reagan, both of which can be downloaded from the website of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. Neither of these Marcos writings make any mention of civilians being on Edsa at all (or of the civil disobedience campaigns around the country at the same time as the revolt); the aide memoire states that the revolution “was not actually a revolution,” as it was “a restoration – the reinstatement of the old oligarchy that Marcos in the course of his ‘democratic revolution’ [an almost thirteen-and-a-half-year period] was about to totally dismantle when he was kidnaped to Hawaii on orders of Ambassador S. Bosworth and Madame C. Aquino.”

It is unclear whether the footage of Bongbong’s 1989 interview was ever distributed (as per the video’s description on YouTube, it is from “Colonel Arturo Aruiza’s private collection of videos”). The public certainly heard him when he delivered his eulogy to his father during a burial ceremony held in October 1989. As described by the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, Bongbong claimed that “‘alien forces’ [i.e., the United States] who did not understand [Ferdinand Sr.] pressured the former president to leave his country.”

Return to the Philippines

Two years later, Bongbong sounded much more conciliatory when he returned to the Philippines. In a news conference on October 31, 1991, Bongbong characterized the Edsa revolt, presumably, as a “time for bitterness and anger” that, a little over five years later, was for him ancient history. “It’s a long, long time since my father died and that is over, that is over, it’s time to move on, and, if we get stuck in the past, nothing will happen to us, and it will lead us nowhere; it’s finished. It’s time to move on.”

Not long after, Bongbong launched his candidacy to become representative of the 2nd District of Ilocos Norte. Bongbong won, becoming the first Marcos to hold elected office after their family’s ouster. In his first term in Congress, Bongbong’s legislative track record was lackluster. Still, in 1995, after only one term in the House, Bongbong tried to win a seat in the Senate. In the run up to his campaign, Marcos made himself available to media outlets looking to feature an ousted dictator’s son gunning for higher office with a seemingly realistic chance of winning.

Among the international outlets that featured Bongbong between 1992 and 1995 was Asiaweek. The news magazine’s July 7, 1993 featured Bongbong (“the Family Hope”), Imelda (“the Undaunted Widow”), and Liza Araneta Marcos (“A Future First Lady?”) on the cover, as players in “the Never-Ending Story” of the Marcoses. Marcos Sr.’s remains by then had yet to be repatriated. But Marcos Jr. was already saying “[if] it happens, it happens” about becoming president in the 21st century. Bongbong also said, “All the problems I left as governor in 1986 remain”—an odd indictment, given that he was notorious for being an absentee governor from 1983 until the revolt; he had succeeded his paternal aunt Elizabeth Marcos-Keon, who was governor for about twelve years; and the governor since 1988 was, at the time, a close ally of the Marcoses, Rudy Fariñas.

To Asiaweek’s international readership, Marcos claimed that they “would have wiped out” the rebels during the February revolt, as they had 10,000 men in Malacañang. Again, no mention is made of people who were helping to protect those rebels or turn away pro-Marcos forces using nonviolent action.

Moreover, some military sources say something else about the Malacañang forces’ ability to mount successful counterattacks against rebel forces. Dated March 5, 1986, the After Operations Report of Felix A. Brawner Jr., Commanding General of the First Scout Ranger Regiment of the Philippine Army—and uncle of current AFP Chief of Staff Romeo Brawner Jr.—noted that all the forces at Malacañang had was effectively only a “monitoring center,” and that AFP chief General Fabian Ver “never knew how to utilize his staff fully.” The communications system was “a problem,” he continued, and there was something wrong in the AFP’s structure and the systems developed which allowed indecisiveness among unit commanders.” Aruiza, in his book Ferdinand E. Marcos: Malacañang to Makiki, agreed with this assessment; he believed that they could have “routed the enemy quickly, if decisive action had been taken at once,” were it not for “so many things” that they needed to contend with, such as a sick commander-in-chief, besides Ver’s ineptitude.

In September 1993, Ferdinand Sr.’s remains were brought back to the Philippines. Bongbong had an opportunity to deliver another eulogy; as reported by the Associated Press, regarding his father’s ouster, Bongbong said, “He never could have imagined the depth which the ambitious and power-hungry would sink.” “These conspirators,” he continued, “perfected their pact with the devils, compromising the country for their personal desires.”

 1995: Candidate for senator

Devils were once more referenced in the much-ballyhooed interview with Kris Aquino, youngest child of Marcos Sr.’s chief rival Ninoy Aquino and former president Cory Aquino, and Bongbong in January 1995, for the talk show Actually….’Yun Na! “Kulang na lang isipin ko na may horns kayo sa ulo,” Kris quipped, describing how she viewed the Marcoses as a child, as she understood then that “the reason [her] dad was in jail was because of [Bongbong’s] dad.” When prompted by Kris to discuss if EDSA and their exile brought the Marcos family closer, Bongbong said, “naging malapit kami,” noting that his sisters were able to devote more time to their children. When asked if he hated the Aquinos back then, Bongbong shook his head while smiling. Bongbong claimed that he accepted their fate: “Ganun talaga ang buhay, wala kang magagawa, just get on with it.” When asked regarding rumors of his political ambitions, Bongbong used Kris’s program to confirm to the nation that he was gunning for a senate seat.

Media accounts of Bongbong’s first senate run paint him as a pleasant and patient campaigner, spreading, as he would once more in 2022, the gospel of unity and nationalism. A May 1995 San Francisco Examiner article quoted him as saying, “Filipinos should love one another and take care of one another, and take care of our country”; “We should be together as one, not fighting one another to benefit foreigners.” The interview with Kris, and the fact that he was running in the same coalition as Gringo Honasan, one of the most prominent Reform the Armed Forces Movement soldiers who wanted to oust Marcos in 1986, seemed to cover what candidate Marcos Jr. needed to say about Edsa. Cory Aquino, leading what was called the Never Again Movement, campaigned against both Bongbong and Gringo, as well as congressional candidate Imelda Marcos and senatorial reelectionist Juan Ponce Enrile, who had already been singing praises to the Marcoses again, after playing a crucial role in ousting them, well before Cory’s presidency ended in 1992.

Bongbong lost in 1995, and between then and 1998, he became more preoccupied with his assertion that he was cheated of a senate seat, as well as the cases against him and his family. At the time, his mother Imelda was the most vocal member of their family regarding EDSA. On August 25, 1997, as representative of the 1st District of Leyte, she gave a privilege speech titled, “President Ferdinand E. Marcos, the True Democrat and Cory Aquino, the Real Dictator.” Imelda stated that Cory “usurped the presidency without the legal basis of a proclamation of votes by the National Assembly as provided for by the Constitution”; claimed that her husband proclaimed martial law “for the survival of the country and democracy”; and derided the “so-called EDSA revolution” as “the revolt of the oligarchy, the feudal lords, Cardinal Sin, some card-bearing communists, foreign interventionists and opportunists.” “Now as history clearly unfolds,” she added, “EDSA was the revolution against the Filipino People and the Republic of the Philippines.”

 1998-2010: Governor and Representative of Ilocos Norte

In 1998, Bongbong became governor of Ilocos Norte, remaining in that position until 2007. From 2007 until 2010, he was once again representative of the 2nd District of Ilocos Norte. Within those twelve years, Bongbong did have occasion (during press briefings, for instance) to talk about the Marcos years and the revolution. In February 2000, he professed indifference toward Edsa commemoration activities. Philippine Daily Inquirer reporter Cristina Azardon claimed that Bongbong called the “collective voice of people who gathered at Edsa in 1986 as ‘white noise’;” Bongbong said he was misquoted. Bongbong apparently did not have any issue with being quoted as saying that his family had “no involvement in the designation of the date” of the Edsa revolution holiday: “We don’t know what it is that they consider to be the turning point, or the moment of triumph, or whatever it is that they sought.”

Governor Bongbong would repeatedly express such passive aggressiveness when asked about commemorating the revolution. In February 2004, Inquirer reporter Azardon noted that there was “No Edsa Day in Marcos Country.” Bongbong held several meetings on Feb. 25, 2004 even if then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo declared that date a non-working holiday. He told reporters that “‘Before today was declared a holiday, we had scheduled several meetings. We just had to push through with them.’” Regarding the revolt, Bongbong said, “‘It is not appropriate for me to speak about Edsa.’” In February 2005, during his third consecutive term as governor, Azardon again noted that there was “No Edsa Holiday in Marcos Country.” “‘It’s business as usual,’” Bongbong said, adding, “The others can go on holiday. I don’t see anything to celebrate in the province.’” His provincial administrator Irineo Martinez confirmed that Feb. 25 was always a working day in the provincial capitol.

In between, Marcos talked about the revolt outside of press conferences. In a puff piece published in the Sunday Inquirer Magazine in May 2002, Bongbong described how surprising Edsa was: “‘I heard about government takeovers, but they only happened in other places. This one was happening to us!” The piece paints Bongbong as a highly capable leader who distinguishes himself from what he calls “political scoundrels” of the immediate post-Edsa Dos era. In the 2003 documentary Imelda by Ramona Diaz, Bongbong also expressed surprise regarding Edsa, but reiterated that it was basically plotted by the United States: “The Americans—that was the downfall. We would never have been removed from the Palace if not for the Americans. We were all shocked when the decision came that we would leave. We never thought my father would give that order.” Bongbong continued to deny that the Filipino people had anything to do with their ouster; in January 2004, he was quoted as saying, “The public never believed the things they said about us. They recognized it for what it was—propaganda.”

Propaganda, specifically the online variety, was something the family was getting into by that time as well. In 2002, the Marcoses put up the now defunct Marcos Presidential Center website. In a May 2002 press briefing, Bongbong said that the website was his sister Imee’s idea. Though Bongbong claimed that the website was supposed to show both “good and bad” information about Ferdinand Sr., there is no version of the website accessible via the Internet Archive that contains the latter. One can find across all versions a timeline that ends thusly: “Faced with a choice between unleashing the military might to crush the crowds supporting the Enrile-Ramos ‘rebellion’ on EDSA and exercising a statesman’s restraint, Pres. Marcos choose the latter. Eventually, to avert bloodshed, he gives up power and goes into forced exile in Hawaii.”

The “Participation Report” of Braulio Balbas, then Deputy Commandant of the Philippine Marines, states that at 9:00 a.m. on February 23, 1986, he received an order from Major General Josephus Ramas to fire howitzers at Camp Crame; ten minutes later, Ramas called again, saying that Marcos Sr. was “on the other line waiting for the result.” Braulio said he was still “positioning the cannons.” He then received confirmation that the order was cleared by Malacanang at 9:30 a.m. and received orders to fire again from Ramas and Irwin Ver of the Presidential Security Command within the next twenty minutes. Balbas refused to fire; he stated that “when I saw how many people were fearlessly throwing themselves along the paths of the tanks and trucks, I know that only an insane military commander would order his troops to train their guns at those hapless civilians.” According to Aruiza in Malacañang to Makiki, Marcos gave direct orders to Gen. Prospero Olivas and Alfredo Lim, telling the former to “control the crowd at EDSA” and the latter to “disperse the crowd.” Neither complied. Both Marcos Sr. and Jr. wanted a firefight; the crowds and defectors didn’t.

In 2005, Bongbong  had an opportunity to return to Hawaii to formalize a sister state-province agreement between Hawaii and Ilocos Norte, as well as to make a court appearance. In an interview with the Honolulu Star-Bulletin in 2006, the year before his final term as governor ended, he said, “‘It was a very dramatic time for us in 1986.” He emphasized that claims about corruption and torture during his father’s time was “a matter of opinion,” and reinforced his ties with the significant Ilocano population of Hawaii. He also affirmed that he would stay in politics “‘for a while yet’” because he “‘[didn’t] know how to do anything else.’”

Rise to the national stage

During his return stint as a member of the House between 2007-2010, Bongbong became a candidate for senator. He had by then joined his father’s pre-dictatorship party, the Nacionalista Party, cutting ties with his father’s dictatorship-era vehicle Kilusang Bagong Lipunan, running as a “guest candidate” in the NP slate. Perhaps because he was in a coalition running against another headed by Cory and Ninoy Aquino’s son, then Sen. Noynoy Aquino—who asserted that he would continue to run after the Marcos’s ill-gotten wealth and that Marcos Sr. was undeserving of a hero’s burial—Bongbong had to deal with the legacy of Edsa more directly in 2010 than in 1995.

“Bigo ang Edsa 1!” he declared during “Edsa week” in February 2010, adding, “Lumala lamang ang kahirapan at hindi nagawang linisin sa katiwalian ang burukrasya ng pamahalaan. . . . Sa ilalim ng dating pamahalaang Marcos, higit na may direksyon ang gobyerno nito. May malinaw na programa at plataporma ang pamahalaang Marcos.” While being interviewed in March 2010 for the program Bandila, Bongbong tried to seem dismissive again, saying that they only observe the celebrations, going on with their work because “kami naman ay di kasama sa pagdiriwang na yan.” Bongbong tried to show off other sides to him besides being a Marcos scion—ranging from claiming credit for the windmills of Ilocos Norte to his musicianship—but the Edsa revolt continued to hound him.

Winning a senate seat under a second Aquino administration, he did not buckle down on his reassertions regarding Edsa and his father’s legacy. In an interview with Agence France-Presse, released on May 19, 2010, Bongbong said, “To compare between him and the presidents since, [Ferdinand Sr.] was a much better president than they have been,” and that “The EDSA revolution was American-inspired,” a “regime change” brought about by foreign intervention; he felt gratified “that other people have come around to that way of thinking.” Less than a year in office later, on Feb. 22, 2011, Sen. Bongbong said that the Philippines could have been Singapore if his father was not ousted; celebrating Edsa served only to “remind us how much works need to be done and how much harder we have to work to gain that progress.” “I think that the propaganda that was so rife in 1986 has been proven to be propaganda,” he told Al Jazeera in the same year. In 2012 and 2013, he took to posting, at length, very similar claims on his Facebook page during Edsa anniversaries. He seemed constantly on the defensive, what with the Noynoy Aquino administration’s denial of the burial of his father’s remains in the Libingan ng mga Bayani, as well as the passage of the Human Rights Victims Reparation and Recognition Act of 2013 on the 27th anniversary of the People Power revolution.

Bongbong did not participate in any deliberations or voting regarding the Human Rights Victims Reparation and Recognition law.

In 2013, perhaps in response to the announcement that the Presidential Commission on Good Government planned to exhibit the jewelry seized from Imelda Marcos, the administrator of Bongbong’s Facebook page posted, “There they go again vilifying and traducing the Marcoses as if everything they own were ill gotten even if the former President was a highly successful lawyer before he became President and had invested his money wisely” (a claim contrary to what courts around the world have reiterated); Edsa was called “one big ‘panloloko’” and the “mother of all scams” “where the people were promised a better life and government reforms but instead, saw the new ‘dispensation’ use their positions to enrich themselves while continuing to blame everything on the Marcoses.”

 Bongbong and his propagandists generally did not let up on such criticism about Edsa throughout the 2010s. It appeared that he took to heart the March 2010 conferment of leadership by “Marcos forces” (including former ministers of his father such as Cesar Virata and Conrado Estrella, grandson of Bongbong’s agrarian reform secretary Conrado Estrella III). Bongbong also seemed to more openly make claims about what his role during Edsa was. In a 2013 interview with Lourd de Veyra and Jun Sabayton for the TV5 program Wasak, Bongbong said, “Ang depensa ng Palasyo iniwan sa akin nung matanda, kasi sabi niya hindi na tayo nakakatiyak kung sino ang mapagkakatiwalaan dito.” When asked about being in the Senate with those in the opposite side during 1986 (i.e., Honasan and Enrile), Bongbong said they reminisced like old veterans who had long gotten rid of any enmity. (While campaigning in Ilocandia in 2004 with then presidential candidate Fernando Poe Jr. and the Marcoses, Enrile apologized to the Ilocanos for his role in ousting Bongbong’s father.)

In a 2015 interview with BizNews Asia, Bongbong remembered that he told his father, “Dad, the enemy is already on war footing, yet, you are still on peace footing. We have to get on a war footing and fight.” Echoing Imelda’s claims, Ferdinand Sr. supposedly admonished him by saying, “How many people will get hurt?” or “I have spent my entire life defending Filipinos, all my entire life was defending Filipinos, now I will kill them?”

That was the same Marcos who was president when famine in Negros, attributable to market interventions made by top Marcos crony Roberto Benedicto, led to numerous deaths, including those of minors; and whose administration had a track record of killing protestors, from those demonstrating close to Malacañang to those protesting in connection with the Negros famine.

During his 2016 attempt to win the vice presidency, though apparently intending to be fairly non-polarizing, emphasizing his achievements and plans, journalists kept asking Bongbong about his opinion on Edsa. “History,” he called it during a January 2016 “Kapihan sa Senado.” Rappler characterized the following statement as Bongbong calling Edsa a “disruption”: “‘Mahirap akong magsabi dahil ako nasa kabilang barikada nung EDSA. Ang sinasabi ko, maraming hindi natapos na tatapusin sana noong 1986.’” Bongbong was also quoted as saying, “It is unfortunate to see that if you look at objective measures, instead of progressing, we have regressed in many, many ways since 1986.” He tried to preemptively address the issue before campaigning officially started, saying via a press release that he expected Edsa celebrations to be “more intensive” because he was running for vice president—not mainly because it was the revolution’s 30th anniversary. He asserted that there were more pressing issues, and that people did not ask him about it when he “[went] around and [met] with our people.”

Even earlier, Bongbong’s campaign team made an attempt to address Edsa in the komiks that were uploaded online in Nov. 2015 and later distributed in print form. The pages dealing with Edsa do not show any people massing up against them, or even make reference to soldiers turning their backs on the Marcoses; all that is portrayed are Americans tricking them into flying out of the country. A panel shows Bongbong with tears streaming down his cheek: “Lahat ng panlilinlang at kasinungalingan ay ginawa nang mga sundalong Amerikano, para takutin ang Pamilya Marcos. Walang nagawa si Bongbong kundi maluha nalang [sic].”

Road to the presidency

Bongbong did not become vice president. While devoting a lot of time to protesting the election results, Bongbong also found the time to start a career as a vlogger. In 2018, in time for the anniversary of the declaration of martial law, his YouTube channel uploaded the two-parter “Enrile: An Eyewitness to History,” featuring a tête-à-tête in an empty auditorium between Enrile and Bongbong. Episode 2 was mainly about the revolution. Most of it was a reiteration of what Bongbong had previously said, and what Enrile stated in his 2012 autobiography, including the reiteration that Marcos Sr. should be praised for supposedly choosing to avoid bloodshed to prevent civil war. A key difference: both Bongbong and Enrile insisted that in retrospect, had Marcos Sr. wanted to, Enrile’s forces really would have been decimated, and any attack on Malacañang would have ended with a Marcos win—“we were very well-prepared,” said Bongbong. But Enrile noted in his biography that by day three of the revolt, military defections to the anti-Marcos side had accelerated, morale among Marcos’s men was very low, “Some of the commanders of President Marcos could no longer control their men,” and that before the Marcoses left, “his [palace] guards had left their posts.”

Thus, by the time it became increasingly clear that Bongbong would run for president in 2022, he had repeatedly attempted to establish himself as an active palace defender during the revolt, a would-be fighter on the pro-Marcos side who, as early as the 1990s, had already reconciled with the military forces intent on deposing his father in 1986—based on this narrative, unity among the only Filipino Edsa actors who mattered to him had already been achieved. What to do still about those who supposedly were merely swayed by opportunistic elites and the United States? He was able to avoid talking about Edsa during his 2022 presidential campaign by hardly giving interviews or participating in debates. No more interview-with-Kris gimmickry nor aggressive counterpoints to Cory or Noynoy Aquino (who died in 2021)—the claim that Edsa was merely a ploy of Aquino-led oligarchs worked in his favor, as there were no more Aquinos in play.

In his 2023 statement about the revolution (without calling it such), Bongbong had this to say: “As we look back to a time in our history that divided the Filipino people, I am one with the nation in remembering those times of tribulation and how we came out of them united and stronger as a nation.” Marcos spoke of the event as if it were a tragedy, and as if to heal the trauma it caused, he offered his “hand of reconciliation to those with different political persuasions to come together as one in forging a better society — one that will pursue progress and peace and a better life for all Filipinos.” This after decades of mostly towing the divisive family line: there were no “people” in the People Power revolution, only a coup that involved a few who were fooled into becoming the Marcoses’ persecutors.

His immediate predecessor’s last People Power anniversary statement begged to differ: “It has been 36 years, but the events of the People Power Revolution remain vivid in our memory, when millions of Filipinos gathered at EDSA to reclaim our nation’s democracy,” says former president Rodrigo Duterte’s 2022 statement; “As we honor the courage and solidarity of those who have come before us and fought to uphold our democracy, let us honor and thank those who continue to keep alive the legacy of this largely peaceful and non-violent revolution.”

Despite the hollow hallelujahs from a former killer-in-chief—and recently, his equally trigger-happy offspring—and the lies and telling silences of a kleptocrat’s son, if the turnout of the protests on Feb. 25 this year is any indication, People Power—truthfully against tyranny and dictatorship—is still alive. And it is stirring.

The fear of many during the 2022 elections campaign that a Bongbong Marcos presidency would lead to more Marcos Sr. “glory days” propaganda has come true.

A “new” Marcos Memorial hospital

Among the active advertisements for bids one can view at the Department of Public Works and Highways website, one will find documents regarding civil works for a Pres. Ferdinand Edralin Marcos Memorial Hospital in Lamut, Ifugao. The bid invitation states that the project’s approved budget for contract is almost PHP 20 million. The contract involves earthwork and the construction of a reinforced concrete structure.

It’s hardly an issue that a fourth-class municipality is set to have one more functional health facility, but the name is a curiosity—there is no Pres. Ferdinand Edralin Marcos Memorial Hospital in the current online version of the National Health Facility Registry. The name does, however, show up in a document detailing the allotments for the FY 2025 Health Facilities Enhancement Program of the Department of Health.    Is the hospital one of the numerous (at least 143) public structures and spaces named after a member of the Marcos family during the Marcos dictatorship, or is it a new facility?

Based on readily available sources, the project is an attempt to revive what was supposedly called the Major Ferdinand Edralin Marcos Emergency Hospital in Lamut. According to Senate Bill no. 1370, filed by Sen. Imee Marcos in October 2022, that hospital was “abandoned by the provincial government” sometime in 2010. Imee’s bill seeks to establish in Mayoyao, Ifugao, a hospital to be known as the Eastern Cordillera Regional Hospital, integrating into that the Major Ferdinand Edralin Marcos Emergency Hospital, “retaining its name as such.” The explanatory note of the House counterpart bill, House Bill no. 3786, filed by Ifugao Rep. Solomon R. Chungalao and Marcos clan members Ferdinand Alexander “Sandro” Marcos III and Angelo Marcos Barba, noted that the bill had been refiled twice, getting House approval during the 18th Congress. However, the status of both the current Senate and House bills is “pending with committee.”

It is unclear when “Major” became “President” and “Emergency” was changed to “Memorial.” The Local Government Code allows LGUs to rename “provincial hospitals, health centers, and other health facilities” within their territorial jurisdiction. The insistence on keeping the name may be strengthened since the restoration of the hospital is finally making headway under another Marcos administration.

Dubious heroic narrative

Moreover, Chungalao is a firm believer in the wartime heroism of Major Ferdinand E. Marcos. In May 2023, he filed another bill, HB no. 7989, which aimed solely to restore and rehabilitate the Lamut hospital. In the bill’s explanatory note, Chungalao said that the hospital was built on the site where Marcos Sr. was once critically wounded while being chased by Japanese soldiers. A man named Hodom (surnamed Bannawol) supposedly “found him and decided to cover him in grass so that the pursuing Japanese soldiers will not see and catch him.”

Hodom, the story continues, along with his “barangay-mates,” retrieved the grass-covered Marcos at nighttime “and brought him to their home and nurtured him back to continue his guerilla activities.” Chungalao claimed that the hospital was specifically requested by Hodom when Marcos, as president (more like datu or sultan) asked the Ifugao elder what he could do to reward his rescuers. Capping off his tale, Chungalao said that after the EDSA Revolution, the hospital was stripped of the Marcos name, becoming the Panopdopan District Hospital, named after the barangay where it is located. In 2010, the hospital relocated to another site—outside Barangay Panopdopan but retaining the name—leaving, as Imee said, the original facility abandoned. Chungalao’s bill aimed to revive the rotting facility as “a testament of the former president’s heroic services during the Second World War.”

Capt. Vicente Rivera of the 14th Infantry, Marcos’s guerrilla unit from December 1944 until the conclusion of the war, told Bonifacio Gillego, writer of exposes on Marcos’s wartime record, that Marcos never participated in combat operations during his time with the 14^th. The  unit’s rosters clearly state that Marcos was a non-combat (S-5, or civil affairs) officer based in their headquarters in Bagabag, Nueva Vizcaya when the adventure in Panopdopan—about 30 kilometers away—supposedly took place.

Setting aside the questionability of Marcos Sr.’s alleged exploits, there is no law, whether a Republic Act or a Presidential Decree, creating a Ferdinand Marcos hospital in Ifugao. There is no General Appropriations Act, particularly those enacted during the Marcos Sr. years, stating that there was a Major Ferdinand Edralin Marcos Emergency Hospital in that province; there was a Pres. Ferdinand E. Marcos Emergency Hospital in Diffun, Quirino, which is now called the Diffun District Hospital. A Panopdopan Emergency Hospital does appear in GAAs enacted before the EDSA Revolution.

Perhaps the Panopdopan facility used to be colloquially referred to as the Ferdinand Marcos Hospital. It may very well have been the hospital’s intended name, considering that it was created as a field hospital under what was then called the Major Ferdinand E. Marcos Veterans Regional Hospital in Bayombong, Nueva Vizcaya, as per Presidential Decree no. 306—an instance of Marcos Sr. using his dictatorial powers to affirm the naming of a hospital after himself. The two formally named pre-EDSA Ferdinand Marcos hospitals were rechristened by the Corazon Aquino administration via Memorandum Order no. 48, issued in November 1986. The order, which changed the name of several government hospitals named after one of the Marcoses or are very closely associated with them, does not mention any Marcos-named hospitals anywhere in Ifugao.

It can thus be argued that the “resurrected” Pres. Ferdinand Edralin Marcos Memorial Hospital in Ifugao will be the first such facility formally named after the dictator in that province.

Public funds used to perpetuate Marcos Sr. myth

This is but one recent case of a government project done or planned under Marcos Jr.’s administration that used or intends to use public funds to build something that honors his father.

In February 2023, there was groundbreaking ceremony for the construction of the Ferdinand E. Marcos Grandstand in Camp Capt. Valentin S. Juan (the Ilocos Norte Police Provincial Office) in Laoag, Ilocos Norte reportedly funded by the Office of the Ilocos Norte First District Rep. Sandro Marcos, and is under an Ilocos Norte provincial police program called Better, Brighter, and Model PPO 2023 and Beyond—BBM 2023 and Beyond, for short. Sandro attended both the February groundbreaking ceremony and the inauguration of the grandstand on Sept. 11, 2023, the 106th birth anniversary of his paternal grandfather.

Memorial Markers

Ilocos Norte is, of course, already peppered with structures and memorials honoring the Marcoses—another one, built using funds controlled by someone sometimes referred to as “Ferdinand Marcos III,” is unsurprising. The same can be said about the planned Marcos Monument in San Esteban, Ilocos Sur—still being in the so-called pro-Marcos Solid North—which seeks to reinforce an utterly fictional connection between Marcos Sr. and an important wartime activity. After reporting on the planned monument—and debunking the false war stories connected to it—in May 2023, members of the UP Third World Studies Center were able to visit the planned memorial site in August that same year. It appeared that there was no progress on the monument at that time after the groundbreaking ceremonies held in April 2023.

However, based on publicly accessible bid documents (e.g., from the international contract opportunity website tendernews.com), the project—titled “Construction/Improvement of New Memorial Plaza of Major Ferdinand E. Marcos, et al. at Landing Site (USS Gar) Located at Barangay Apatot, San Esteban, Ilocos Sur”—is pushing through. Last year, the municipality of San Esteban allocated over PHP 9.5 million for the project—quite a sum for a fifth-class municipality.

If it is completed within 2025, the San Esteban memorial may become the second monument to Ferdinand Sr. built with public money during Ferdinand Jr.’s presidency. The first one is the Pantabangan Dam marker in Nueva Ecija, which was completed sometime in early 2023. An older marker remains on the site as well.

About a sixth of the road-facing side of the marker—which is approximately six feet tall and eight feet wide, atop a two-step platform—is occupied by a smiling portrait of Marcos Sr., beneath which are his name and the years of his presidency in big, bold characters, about sixty font sizes bigger than the rest of the marker’s text. The marker highlights that it was put up during the tenure of several National Irrigation Administration officials, including NIA Acting Administrator Eduardo “Eddie” Guillen. Bongbong appointed Guillen, a former mayor of Piddig, Ilocos Norte, to that position in December 2022.

Though the marker’s text does say that funding for the dam came largely from foreign loans and that a pre-dictatorship law, Republic Act no. 5499, authorized the construction of the dam, the marker makes it seem that the massive infrastructure project would not have been realized were it not for Ferdinand Sr.—as if the money came from his pockets and he personally directed the dam’s construction.

Marcos Field, Marcos Parks

The four projects mentioned so far, however, are dwarfed in terms of cost, and possibly scale, by the planned President Ferdinand E. Marcos Sr. Field at the Philippine National Police Academy in Silang, Cavite. Based on documents downloadable from the DPWH website, part of the project will use DPWH funds—with a PHP 9.65 million approved budget for contract—for earthworks and plain and reinforced concrete works. Specifically, it is part of the allocation for the Construction/Improvement of Various Infrastructures in Support of National Security program (in Filipino: Tatag ng Imprastraktura para sa Kapayapaan at Seguridad, or TIKAS).

Another document, downloadable from tendernews.com, states that the ABC for the project named “PNPA INFRA 2024-21 Construction of the President Ferdinand Edralin Marcos, Sr. Field (Phase 1)” is PHP 100 million. That was set to come out of the PNPA’s funding under the 2024 GAA. The document states that the bid opening was scheduled on August 21 last year.

PNPA Marcos Field

PNPA director PMGen. Eric Noble first announced that the PNPA’s parade grounds will be expanded and renamed into Marcos Field in March 2023, during the 44th Commencement

Exercises of the PNPA. According to the Philippine Daily Inquirer, Noble “highlighted Marcos Sr.’s contribution to the academy, mentioning Presidential Decree No. 1780, which provides the PNPA with an academic chapter and expanded curricular programs.”

A groundbreaking ceremony for the field was held in July 2024. The guest of honor was Sen. Imee. According to a Philippine Information Agency article, “The construction of the President Ferdinand Edralin Marcos Sr. Field is dedicated and named to the former president who is considered and acknowledged as the ‘Father of the PNPA.’” The article also said that the grounds “will be equipped with a 2-story grandstand with the size of 30M x 160M [with the] ground floor [serving] as a holding and receiving area with a VIP room and conference rooms,” and the second floor serving as “the stage with a VIP room, an audiovisual room, an office, and bleachers which can accommodate approximately 1,200 seats.”

Based on pictures of the field’s planned features, which can be seen in the background of photos of the groundbreaking, the project also entails the construction of yet another Ferdinand Marcos Sr. monument, much bigger and more elaborate than the Pantabangan one is or the San Esteban one can ever hope to be. The current plan appears to involve a huge full-body portrait or relief of Ferdinand Sr. with the colors of the Philippine flag in the background, integrated into a structure that looks like a cumbersome crest-shaped headdress, fronted by an altar-like table on a raised platform. It resembles a contemporary Catholic church sanctuary, with the dictator standing in for the Christ on the crucifix.

Arguably, former Philippine Constabulary/Integrated National Police chief Fidel Ramos also has a right to be called the father of the PNPA, at least based on propaganda made in favor of him. A book titled 12 years of Leadership, Commitment and Achievements, published by the Headquarters of the PC/INP in 1984, many of the pieces of legislation on police matters were in fact drafted by Ramos and/or representatives of the police. It also says that Ramos “set up the Integrated National Police Training Command” in 1976, which preceded the creation of the PNPA. The website of the PNPA class of 1996 notes that after the enactment of PD no. 1184, which created the PNPA, Ramos “created a study committee to prepare the corresponding feasibility study and all other prerequisites for the activation of the envisioned police academy.” Lastly, the PNPA relocated to its current site in Cavite in 1994, when Ramos was president.

150-hectare Marcos Park in Rizal province

If there is at least one upcoming Marcos Field, there is also a new “Marcos Park” in the works. In statements made to the media in January 2024, Secretary Jose Acuzar of the Department of Human Settlements and Urban Development, said that the Pasig River Promenade, part of the Pasig River Urban Development, will lead to a 150-hectare park in Rizal province, which may be called “Marcos Park.” The current PHP 18 billion Pasig River rehabilitation project is reportedly funded solely via donations from private entities. according to Acuzar. Envisioned to be like New York’s Central Park, Acuzar said it will be named after Marcos “kasi siya ang nagpagawa” (he, Bongbong, ordered it built).

Apparently, that will likely be the second Marcos Park built under Bongbong’s term. The first is the facility in the Pambansang Pabahay para sa Pilipino Housing program site in Barangay Vista Alegre, Bacolod City. Back in December 2023,  Acuzar said that a park to be constructed in the site was dubbed by his department as “Marcos Park.” The first units in the site were turned over, after a number of delays, in December 2024.

Marcos Museums and Military Honors

In May 2023, the Malacañang Heritage Mansions became open to the public. Among them is Bahay Ugnayan, which “invites visitors to explore the personal and political journey of President Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Marcos Jr.,” decribed as “a man whose destiny is intertwined with the nation’s history.”

The Teus Mansion, meanwhile, features a museum of Philippine presidents. The largest room therein is dedicated to the Marcos Sr. administration; all other presidents share a room. The brief biographical note about Marcos Sr. in the museum reiterates the false claim that he obtained a score of 98.01 in the 1939 bar examinations, and claims that the “threat of Communist insurgency as well as the protests against his administration” were the sole reasons for the imposition of martial law in 1972. It also brushes off many details about his ouster, simply stating that “A few weeks [after the 1986 snap election], on 25 February 1986, Marcos and his family were exiled to Honolulu, Hawaii.”

The timeline of events in the “Marcos room” of the museum does provide more details—such as the vote snatching during the election, the walk out of the Comelec computer operators due to “anomalous vote counting,” and even the February 11, 1986 assassination of anti-Marcos Antique governor Evelio Javier—but overall, the artwork and memorabilia-filled exhibit tries to stay “neutral” about Marcos Sr.

Based on photos, the presidential museum in the Baguio Mansion House, inaugurated by First Lady Liza Araneta-Marcos in September 2024, is more of the same—portraits, busts, and (ghostwritten) books of the dictator can be found in the Marcos Sr. section of the museum. Moreover, the museum features not one President Marcos but two: the Baguio mansion also has a small Bongbong Marcos exhibit. The DPWH Cordillera Administrative Region’s annual procurement plan for civil works and consulting services, dated June 30, 2024, includes a line item partly for the “Rehabilitation and Improvement of the Mansion House,” with an estimated budget of PHP 100,000.00. The source of funds indicated is the Office of the President.

Another Malacañang mansion was renovated in 2024, but it is not open to the public. The Laperal Mansion has been designated the Presidential Guest House, and features themed rooms for every president before Bongbong. Based on photos, the biggest suite is the Ferdinand E. Marcos one. The brief description of Marcos Sr. in the Laperal Mansion website depicts the dictator as a truly productive president—“In his time, the Philippines saw a boom in infrastructure, farming and arts”—and a loving family man—“He was known to step out of cabinet meetings when he would hear one of his children crying.”

At least one other Marcos-associated museum was renovated in 2024. The Marikina Shoe Museum has long been tied to Imelda, since it houses some of the pairs from her infamous shoe collection. However, when a team of researchers from the UP Third World Studies Center visited the museum in September 2023, Imelda’s shoes and a few small framed photographs of her were confined to the museum’s mezzanine; previous photographs of the museum prior to 2019 showed that it had a number of unmissable paintings of Imelda, which didn’t exactly highlight her connection to the Marikina shoe industry. The paintings were restored in 2024, and her shoes and photographs were placed in a much more prominent location on the first floor. A terno of Imelda alongside a barong of Marcos Sr. can still be found on the mezzanine.

According a February 2019 post by the Marikina Public Information Office Facebook page, Mayor Marcy Teodoro caused the previous changes in the museum’s exhibits that resulted in the removal of Imelda’s paintings, stating, “Mas magiging makabuluhan ang ating shoe museum kung sa pagbisita rito ng mga naglalakbay aral ay may kaalaman, kamalayan at karanasan silang iuuwi at yayakapin.” In 2024, he not only brought the paintings back, he also hosted the museum’s relaunching in July with Imelda herself and Liza Araneta-Marcos.

Bongbong rocket

Besides these museums connected to the first ladies surnamed Marcos, last year also saw the opening of museums with exhibits praising the Marcoses that are tied to a somewhat less glamorous arm of the state—the military. There is the Military Park in Camp Cape Bojeador in Burgos, Ilocos Norte, which was inaugurated in January 2024. Among the exhibits are replicated remnants of the Marcos era Self-Reliance Defense Posture program, including a launcher for the failed “Bongbong rocket” program.

Interestingly, that was not the only government-backed appearance of the rocket named after the president last year. Among the exhibits at the lobby of the Philippine International Convention Center during the celebration of the 74th birthday of the Philippine Marine Corps, held on Nov. 7, 2024, was a model Bongbong rocket. A little over a month later, Bongbong led the relaunch of the Armed Forces of the Philippines museum. Among the museum’s centerpieces is yet another Bongbong rocket, which the president gamely posed for pictures with. Never mind that the missile program fizzled out well before the Marcos dictatorship ended, producing projectiles dismissed by Americans as “Roman candles.”

Were it not for the EDSA Revolution, Bongbong would have long had something named after him besides the ill-fated rockets. In September 1983, the Sangguniang Bayan of Batac, Ilocos Norte adopted Resolution no. 113, “Declaring the Batac Sports Complex as Governor Ferdinand (Bongbong) R. Marcos Jr. Sports Complex.”

The text of the resolution does not explain why the facility, still to be constructed, was to be named after the newly installed governor, a living person, possibly in violation of Republic Act no. 1059.

Bongbong did not seem to mind; he even attended the groundbreaking ceremony for the complex. The facility was to be partly funded by donations (notably from the Annak ti Batac chapters of Northern California and Hawaii) but some municipal resolutions (e.g., Resolution no. 50, s. 1984) show that public funds were also appropriated for the project. Come April 1986, however, the Sangguniang Bayan was well aware that they could not make any further progress with the project; Resolution no. 38, s. 1986 resolved to simply construct a commemorative marker on the site of the complex that never was, though the text of the resolution called it the “Batac Sports Complex.”

Marcos tank

One other piece of military hardware—functional this time—named after a Marcos showed up between 2023 and 2024. Photos of a light tank bearing the name Maj. Ferdinand E. Marcos started showing up on social media in late 2023. The Armor Division of the Philippine Army also posted a photo of it in July 2024. Finally, in December last year, during the commemoration of the 89th anniversary of the AFP, the Marcos tank was displayed at the Lapu-Lapu Grandstand in Camp Aguinaldo, with a panel board highlighting Marcos Sr.’s status as a recipient of the Medal for Valor—the basis for which has long been deemed dubious by historians such as Ricardo Jose and writer Charles C. McDougald.

If one also counts the commemorative stamp for the fiftieth anniversary of the Labor Code, featuring both former labor secretary Blas Ople and Marcos Sr., released in May 2024, overall, last year, there were about a dozen government or government-supervised projects that were announced, ongoing, or completed that are meant to honor the Marcoses, in addition to several that were completed in 2023.

Paoay museum

Imee is certainly no stranger to using government funds to honor her father. Back when she was governor of Ilocos Norte between 2010 and 2019, she commissioned heritage specialist Eric Zerrudo—currently executive director of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts—to curate the exhibits of Malacañang of the North in Paoay, Ilocos Norte, highlighting the achievements during the Marcos Sr. years. In 2017, over the course of a House Committee on Good Government investigation looking into alleged anomalous transactions involving the Ilocos Norte Provincial Government, Zerrudo made a startling claim: he did not know that the project was government funded, believing it was paid for by the Marcos family—in fact, he said he received his and his company’s payment in cash, given by Imee herself. Thus, he claimed that his purported signatures on bid documents were falsified. As of this writing, there is no reported resolution to this matter, or any of the other anomalies and irregularities involving then Governor Imee that were uncovered almost eight years ago, even if legislators back then were considering filing plunder charges against her.

In 2019, she filed   a bill to modernize Mariano Marcos State University and to turn it into Ferdinand E. Marcos State University. The objective of that legislation can still be achieved if she is reelected.

Who can stop the continued glorification of Marcos Sr. using false narratives?

The National Historical Commission of the Philippines is the primary government agency responsible for history and has the authority to determine all factual matters relating to official Philippine history.

During the Duterte administration, it tried to halt  but failed the burial Marcos Sr. at the Libingan ng mga Bayani, approved a fairly neutral historical about him, and opposed a bill that aimed to make the dictator’s birthday “Marcos Day” in Ilocos Norte.

Surely, the Commission would not want it inscribed in history as having abandoned its mandate simply because the president is another Marcos.