Author: diktaduraadmin

Imee’s half-truths on Self-Reliance Defense Posture

Posted on June 13, 2024June 24, 2024 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But, as pointed out by a comprehensive (albeit now outdated) study on SRDP by Danilo Lazo and Juania Mercader, published in the Asian Studies journal, “The basic policy governing the self-reliance program can be found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

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

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

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

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

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 June 13, 2024June 24, 2024 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?

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 June 13, 2024June 13, 2024 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.

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

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

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.

A 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

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

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 June 13, 2024June 13, 2024 by diktaduraadmin

Originally published by Vera Files on May 16, 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.

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.

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.

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).

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.

Sample map

Posted on May 24, 2023 by diktaduraadmin

Junah Amör C. Delfinado

SOLD OUT

Posted on May 9, 2023December 9, 2023 by diktaduraadmin

Marcos Lies is a compilation of essays on various lies that the Marcoses have either concocted or have done nothing to correct, lies that aided them in pursuit of power and plunder. This book shows how the lies were crafted and who enabled the Marcoses to foster their falsity on their targeted audience or those who knew the truth but have chosen to be silent.

Joel F. Ariate Jr., Miguel Paolo P. Reyes, Larah Vinda Del Mundo

Click Here to Order

The book’s 360 pages contain 125,877 words spread in 31 chapters. It also has 13 appendixes of rare archival materials and 109 photographs and illustrations. The book is 9.5 x 12 inches, softbound, printed in 110 gsm (grams per square meter) paper and weighs about 1.2 kilograms.

HOW TO ORDER

Marcos Lies is currently sold out. Try contacting Solidaridad Bookshop in Padre Faura or Popular Bookstore in Tomas Morato for available copies.

We also accept walk-in purchases at our office. Visit us at the Third World Studies Center, Lower Ground Floor, Palma Hall, Roxas Ave, Diliman, Quezon City, 1101 Metro Manila.

PRICE

Pick-up at UP Diliman – PHP 1,500.00

Courier – PHP 1,500.00 + Shipping Fee

– Within NCR (+250 PHP for first copy; +100 PHP for each additional copy)

– Rest of the country (+350 PHP for first copy; +100 PHP for each additional copy)

For questions, you may email us at twsc.updiliman@up.edu.ph or call us at (02) 8920 5428.

Marcos Sr. and the April Fools affair

Posted on April 1, 2023June 13, 2024 by diktaduraadmin

Originally published by Vera Files on April 1, 2023

It was an April Fools’ day story that played out in the pages of the Bangkok Post 50 years ago, but the ending lies buried among the papers that the Marcos family left behind when they fled Malacañang in 1986.

It was a farce where the dictator, Ferdinand E. Marcos, put to work government officials and members of the country’s diplomatic corps to refute what was already an open secret: his sexual dalliance with American actress Dovie Beams.

Figure 1. Details of Dovie Beam’s picture from Hermie Rotea’s Marcos’ Lovey Dovey as posted by the Human Rights Violations Victims’ Memorial Commission.

There were three items related to the Philippines in the April 1, 1973 issue of the Bangkok Post. On page 14 was a whole-page profile of Marcos written by the editor-in-chief, Theh Chongkhadikij, with a sidebar on how Filipinos were faring under martial law. So far so good, Chongkhadikij reported, calling Marcos “a deep thinker with fair visions.” Just a page over was a report on Manila’s burgeoning underground press, “reflecting the Filipino’s frustration with stringent press controls after (the) declaration of martial law.”

The Dobbie Beams story

But what would get Malacañang’s goat was an article on the last page with the headline, “Actress Promises Raw Intimacies, Lurid Facts of Oriental Love.” Written by Gerry Coffey, it recounted the supposed efforts of “American actress Dobbie Beams” to publicize in Thailand an upcoming book on her “tempestuous affair” with Marcos.

The piece was accompanied by a picture of a woman, who could have been the real actress, posing as the “Dobbie Beams” that Coffey was referring to in her piece. It hewed so close to tales about the philandering president —as close as Dobbie to Dovie or Dovey— that the bricolage Coffey wrote could have been, to the humorless, mistaken for a report on an actual sex and political scandal.

Later, Coffey would describe her piece as an April Fools’ gag.

In the article, Coffey made it appear that “Dobbie Beams” was doing a promotional tour of the imaginary book in Bangkok “because of its importance in the Southeast Asia region and the impact of her story on the lives of the Asian people.” It seemed a subtle way of saying that the whole region was already in on the gossip about the Marcos-Beams affair — at a time when the president was trying to project his nearly seven month-old martial rule as a steadying factor in the Philippines and a welcome development in Southeast Asia.

By this time, the Bangkok Post had already earned Marcos’s ire when the newspaper published a three-part series, from February 21-23, 1973, of the scathing condemnation of the Marcos regime by Ninoy Aquino, the dictator’s arch political rival. The Aquino Papers, which were smuggled out of the former senator’s prison cell, forced Marcos to answer the tirade with an 8,000-word cable to the Bangkok Post, which the broadsheet also published.

Coffey, who had press access to Marcos and his wife, Imelda, at least twice before, had caricatured the first lady for a bizarre denial of her husband’s alleged long-time affair with Beams.

The incident was obviously preying on the mind of Mrs. Marcos too, for when I interviewed her, she seemed compelled to mention it although I would never have broached the subject myself.

She decried the villainous smear on her husband’s morals and said that their ambitious enemies would stop at nothing to lower her husband’s image in the eyes of the country.

The tape recording, which allegedly had been hooked up under a bed during a clandestine meeting between the President and Miss Beams, reportedly has President Marcos whispering sweet nothings, singing love songs, and reciting poetry.

In actual fact, said Mrs. Marcos, tears threatening to spill down her cheeks, it is an imitation of her husband’s voice taken from his many campaign speeches. The singing, she admitted, is actually that of her husband’s, but any Filipino would immediately recognize that he is singing the national marching anthem—hardly a love song.

Marcos’s men were quick to sense the damaging implications of Coffey’s attempt at humor at the expense of the first couple.

Cleaning up the mess

Four days after April Fool’s day when Coffey’s article came out, the Malaysian newspaper Berita Harian carried an article about Manuel Yan, Philippine ambassador to Thailand, lodging a diplomatic protest at the Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs because of the Bangkok Post’s “false story”.

Why Yan, still under 10 months in his posting in Thailand, thought a formal protest was a proportional response to Coffey’s article is unclear. He had a long and distinguished military career, capped by an almost four-year stint as the youngest chief of staff of the Armed Forces at 48. Yan’s diplomatic assignment, however, was largely seen as a way of easing him out from the president’s inner circle for publicly saying that Marcos had no clear reason to impose martial law.

In a June 14, 1973 personal and confidential letter to Marcos, Yan mentioned another letter he wrote to the president on April 6 that same year “regarding the April Fools’ gag story on Dovie Beams which appeared on ‘The Bangkok Post’ issue of April 1st.”

At least, the envoy had brought the matter directly to Marcos. Unlike Gen. Fabian Ver, then commanding general of the Presidential Security Command, who only mentioned Chongkhadikij’s profile of the president in an April 11 letter to Marcos. Of the four pages (13, 14, 15, 16) of the Bangkok Post that Ver had attached to his letter, none had Coffey’s piece which was on page 20.

Was Ver, ever the loyal and solicitous Marcos henchman, trying to shield the president from Coffey’s dark humor? But Ver was neck-deep in the whole Marcos-Beams affair, arranging the lovers’ trysts.

Figure 2. Amb. Manuel Yan’s June 14, 1973 letter to Pres. Ferdinand Marcos bearing Gerry Coffey’s apology to the First Couple.

Yan’s June 14 letter, carried the desired ending to the Coffey story: an apology. Three months after publication of her article, Marcos’s diplomatic agents got the apology from Coffey.

“It was a spur of the moment idea for an April Fool joke and I was called to the States on an emergency before I had the time to reflect on the seriousness of the article,” Coffey explained in a June 12, 1973 letter to Ferdinand and Imelda.

“On the long journey home,” she continued, “I realized that besides being grossly inconsiderate of you and your wife, I violated my own sense of journalistice [sic] ethics by catering to the lower tastes of the reading public.”

“It wasn’t until General (Carlos) Romulo’s visit however, that I realized the embarrassment it caused you and your government, and I bitterly regret that,” Coffey finally wrote.

The visit she was referring to, based on the Foreign Service Institute publication Philippine Diplomacy: Chronology and Documents, 1972-1981, is likely the one that took place on April 13-21, 1973. Romulo, as foreign affairs secretary, attended the Sixth ASEAN Foreign Ministers Meeting in Pattaya, southeast of Bangkok.

There is no indication that Coffey wanted her apology to be published or for the joke to be spelled out for everyone, and no one in Marcos’s propaganda corps probably felt the need to bring up Beams again in the state-controlled press in the Philippines.

In her apology, Coffey stated, “As the material about Dovie Beams had been given previous publicity in magazine and newspapers, including my own paper [referring either to the Post or the now defunct Bangkok World, where she served as “women’s editor”], I did not consider the seriousness of alluding to her presence in Bangkok.”

The real Dovie Beams affair

By the time Marcos received Coffey’s letter, he had been “dealing with” Beams for a little over four years.

Well before the actress became a household name in the Philippines, Marcos’ penchant for women was already an open secret. As has been detailed before, Imelda wasn’t even the first “Mrs. Marcos”; the story of Carmen Ortega was already well-disseminated by 1969, thanks to Carmen Navarro Pedrosa’s The Untold Story of Imelda Marcos.

That same year, news of an alleged affair between Marcos and the wife of a United States Navy made the rounds among American diplomats, as reported by Jack Anderson in an article carried by newspapers such as the Indiana Gazette and the Great Bend Tribune in September.

Former U.S. Embassy Consul General Lewis Gleeck Jr. wrote in his book President Marcos and the Philippine Political Culture that it was not actually a naval officer’s wife. He said the “actual offended party [was] bent on making a public scandal,” but was dissuaded after getting a “stern lecture” on the dignity of the Office of the President by Executive Secretary Alejandro Melchor.

“There is no doubt that Ferdinand, to put it vulgarly, screwed around,” James Hamilton-Paterson wrote in America’s Boy, adding that “there is reason for thinking that mere sexual encounters were not by any means the only thing he wanted, and it was the emotional seriousness of his unexpected relationship with Dovie Beams that caused all the problems.”

Between late 1968 and early 1969, Beams was cast as one of the leads in the film Maharlika, an American-Philippine co-production based on Marcos’s war years. According to Beams, as relayed by Hermie Rotea in his book Marcos’ Lovey Dovie, her travel to the Philippines was arranged by Marcos crony Potenciano “Nanoy” Ilusorio as the movie was filmed on location.

But Maharlika was never publicly screened anywhere save in Guam, where an unfinished version had a brief theatrical run in August 1970. A bootleg version appeared in the 1980s, retitled Guerrilla Strike Force.

It is unclear when the decision to shelve the film was made. Letters purportedly from Beams, dated October 29 and November 6, 1970 and currently in the custody of the Presidential Commission on Good Government, state that it was she who asked the Philippine production company to stop the film from being shown as it was still unfinished and she had not been fully compensated. After Maharlika’s screenings in Guam, Beams was described in American newspapers, including The Los Angeles Times, as the head of the Manila-based production firm Creativity Films, and was casting for a film titled Aftermath.

It was on November 11, 1970 that Beams rose to infamy. In a press conference at the Bayview hotel in Manila, she divulged the details of her torrid affair with Marcos and played a snippet of one of their secretly recorded sexual encounters.

According to scholar Caroline Hau, “[the] airing of Marcos’s bedroom antics—from the most intimate of conversations to the most intimate of acts—exposed him to public hilarity and humiliation, effectively chipping away at his own carefully crafted public persona as devoted husband and heroic statesman.”

Washington naturally was concerned. Telegrams were sent from the U.S. embassy in Manila, then headed by Ambassador Henry Byroade, on Beams’s disclosures and movements. Shortly after her press conference, the actress was escorted out of the country by American consul Lawrence Harris, with immigration associate commissioner Victor Nituda, several other immigration officers, and press secretary Francisco Tatad.

Philippine officials made clear that Beams was not being deported; in a November 14, 1970 article titled “No Pressure, Miss Beams,” in Guam’s Pacific Daily News, the actress said she had been “assured by immigration authorities that she could come back anytime she wanted.”

At least that was what the Philippine News Service stressed.

There is no record of Beams ever returning to the Philippines. Her prospects of coming back were likely further dimmed after a failed assassination attempt in Hong Kong a few days after she left the Philippines. Former Hong Kong Standard editor Kevin Sinclair recalled witnessing a standoff between local police and “five killers with Philippine diplomatic passports” at the hotel where Beams was staying.

Seeing the impact of the Beams revelations on Marcos’s image, his regime’s diplomatic corps in the U.S. was put to work in an effort to dig up dirt on the private life of the American actress. In a cable sent from the Philippines Permanent Mission to the United Nations in New York to acting foreign secretary Manuel Collantes dated November 30, 1970, Romulo relayed privileged information about Beams from birth statistics records of the Department of Public Health of Nashville, Tennessee (revealing that she was older than she claimed) and records of the Fourth Circuit Court Clerk’s Office detailing her divorce from her ex-husband Edward Boehms.

The divorce papers included a report from psychiatrist Dr. Henry B. Brackin, who diagnosed Beams with “anxiety hysteria with schisoid (sic) traits, a poorly integrated personality, extremely narcissistic, suffering from illusions and possible hallucinations.”

Figure 3. Cable of Sec. Romulo to Sec. Collantes, November 1970, p.1 image 567, Roll 170, Digitized PCGG Files

Figure 3. Cable of Sec. Romulo to Sec. Collantes, November 1970, p.2 image 568, Roll 170, Digitized PCGG Files

Figure 3. Foreign Affairs Sec. Carlos P. Romulo’s cable to Manuel Collantes, November 30, 1970.

Romulo emphasized that the information was “top secret” and only for the eyes of Nicasio Valderrama, then first secretary and press officer of the Philippines Permanent Mission to the UN. Still, the information in Romulo’s letter made national news.

In a December 10, 1970 diary entry, Marcos wrote that Roberto Benedicto, Juan Ponce Enrile, and Supreme Court justices Antonio Barredo and Claudio Teehankee “all agree that [their] idea of filing a case of blackmail or libel” against Beams was “not wise” and “recommend[ed] that we meet the Dovie Boehms attack with silence and not descend to her level.”

By January 1971, Marcos seemed to have weathered the crisis. According to a Memorandum of Conversation detailing a meeting of U.S. President Richard Nixon with Ambassador Byroade, and diplomat John H. Holdridge,

[Nixon] wanted to know how Marcos was getting along with respect to the Dovey Beams case. [Byroade] said that the case hadn’t really caused Marcos all that much difficulty, since Philippine mores were quite different from our own. The only criticism of Marcos appeared to be over the fact that he got caught out. Whatever he did, he shouldn’t have let Miss Beams make tapes of his liaison. According to [Byroade], Miss Beams was still trying to keep something of a hold over Marcos.

But a few months later, in a March 12, 1971 entry, Marcos wrote that he had directed Potenciano “Nanoy” Ilusorio to “push through the extortion case against Dovie Beams who is still intimidating everyone by false publications, this time in the Detroit Free Press.” In an article in that newspaper on February 28, 1971 with the headline “The Scary World of One Dovie Beams,” the actress said she turned down a $2 million bribe to stop talking about her affair with Marcos. An article in Government Report, a publication of the National Media Production Center, dated May 10, 1971 confirmed that a case against Beams for blackmail was “pending in the Pasig court of first instance.”

It is not known if the case was ever dropped.

Alongside the blackmail case, a character assassination project also took its course in print. As recalled in Hermie Rotea’s Lovey Dovie, the magazine Republic Weekly, a known Marcos publication, released a 10-part series on Beams entitled “The Real Story” which ran from February 26 to April 30, 1971.

Each story, accompanied by nude photographs of Beams, painted her as “an obscure Hollywood bit player who had come to Manila to extort money from President Marcos and from certain businessmen who claim to be close to the President.” A certain “A.E.,” the anonymous contributor who wrote the series, described the love affair as “a figment of Dovie’s imagination,” and detailed her alleged psychiatric diagnosis. Referencing the divorce proceedings earlier alluded to by Romulo, “A.E.” proceeded with a malicious description of Beams’s supposed past.

In 1971, Maharlika was shelved indefinitely on orders of the first lady. In a letter to Imelda dated November 10, 1980, producer Luis Nepomuceno stated that the first lady had entrusted to him “the responsibility of safeguarding the film [Maharlika] which we shelved from exhibition.”

Two years later, Beams said she would reveal details of her love affair with Marcos in a forthcoming book entitled Dovie Beams by Me. She made the announcement in a March 11, 1973 Parade magazine article that featured a picture of her with Marcos autographed by the president. Parade was distributed by hundreds of newspapers across the U.S.

But the tell-all book Beams kept saying she was writing was never released. Rotea’s Lovey Dovie was released in 1983 and is the only book-length treatment of the Dovie Beams affair. It includes information the author gathered from “marathon” interviews with Beams in Beverly Hills in 1973, transcripts of some of the recorded lovemaking sessions, and small unreadable reproductions of the Republic Weekly series where one can make out Beams’s “X-rated” photos.

There is no way of knowing if Marcos still cared about the issue from 1973 onward. There is no mention of the Dobbie-Coffey fiasco in Marcos’s diary entries between April and June 1973. However, various accounts — such as Pedrosa’s Imelda Romualdez Marcos: The Verdict and Beth Day Romulo’s Inside the Palace — claim that Imelda never forgot.

The other women

If their marriage had become more professional than romantic by the time Beams first made her disclosures, Ferdinand and Imelda didn’t show it. Instead, there were public displays of affection, lavish birthday and wedding anniversary celebrations complete with infrastructural “gifts,” and repeated allusions to him as Malakas and her as Maganda.

It was all a hoax, of course.

Documents on the transfer of ill-gotten funds from the Swiss bank accounts of the Marcoses to the Philippine treasury show that among the beneficiaries of the couple’s “foundations” were two women: Evelin Hegyesi in Sidney, Australia and Anita Langheinz in Vienna, Austria.

It remains unclear who Langheinz is, but Hegyesi, a model whose photos appeared in Playboy and Australian dailies and weeklies, is now best known as the mother of President Bongbong Marcos’s alleged half sister, Analisa Josefa (as in Josefa Marcos, the late dictator’s mother). Analisa was reportedly born in April 1971— five months after Beams left the Philippines and two years before Coffey’s article came out.

Figure 4. Order to Vibur Foundation, Deposits to Hegyesi and Langheinz, 1982, Roll 229A, image 939, digitized PCGG Files — Figure 4. Marcos’s Order to Vibur Foundation to Release Funds to Evelin Hegyesi and an Anita Langheinz 1982.

Figure 4. Order to Vibur Foundation, Deposits to Hegyesi and Langheinz, 1985, Roll 229A, image 938, digitized PCGG Files — Figure 4. Order to Vibur Foundation, Deposits to Hegyesi and Langheinz, 1985

A February 1982 order from Marcos, in his “capacity as first beneficiary,” to the Board of Trustees of the Vibur Foundation, directed the “distribution” of Australian $3,000 a month to Hegyesi and U.S. $1,000 also monthly on his behalf.

Hegyesi’s deposits were to start on April 1, 1982, but the order was no April Fools’ joke.

In fact, it included a remittance of Australian $10,000 to Hegyesi “upon receipt of this letter.” Marcos amended his order in 1985 stating that beginning June of that year, Langheinz was to receive U.S. $2,000 per month and Hegyesi, Australian $5,000.

Coffey’s prank article stated that Dobbie Beams met Marcos through a “fast-rising former senator of the Philippines who allegedly lost favor with the First Lady because of his unlimited supply of young beautiful starlets who were placed at the beck and call of government officials.”

Clearly, as with all jokes, Coffey’s April Fool piece had a grain of truth in it —or better yet, an entire sackful mixed with crystalline crap.

Chapter 10 | The Marcoses’ Glory Days

Posted on September 22, 2022 by diktaduraadmin