Author: diktaduraadmin

Originally published by Vera Files on August 21, 2022.

August 21, 2022 is the first Ninoy Aquino Day to be observed under the administration of  President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.  Based on social media posts, Marcos loyalists are, of course, not keen on commemorating the legally declared holiday which marks the assassination of the former senator and main political rival of the Chief Executive’s father.

They echo claims long made by supporters of the former dictator: Aquino was a power-hungry communist; Marcos Sr. had nothing to do with his death 39 years ago; and that Aquino’s widow and son, who both became presidents, should have sought the truth behind the murder but, for some conspiratorial reason, did not.

When Aquino was shot dead while being escorted by uniformed men at the airport after returning from the United States in 1983, Marcos and some of his military men were put in a defensive position. The crime committed in broad daylight triggered a torrent of protests condemning the regime, especially from the business sector and the Church hierarchy, and deeply impacted its credibility at home and abroad.

The former dictator did everything in his power to ensure that he and some of his most loyal men would appear to be free of any culpability for the crime. Marcos put Gregorio Cendaña, his  information minister and chief propagandist, to work.

Three days after the Aquino assassination, Marcos created a fact-finding commission to investigate the crime. But the five-member panel, led by then Supreme Court Chief Justice Enrique Fernando, was short-lived as its members resigned due to public outcry over the composition of the commission.  By virtue of Presidential Decree No. 1886, another fact-finding team led by the retired associate justice of the Court of Appeals Corazon Agrava was constituted to investigate the murder.

AN ATTEMPT AT MANIPULATING PUBLIC OPINION

Approaching the first anniversary of the assassination, Cendaña had outlined a government communications strategy to match the planned activities of the political opposition as the Agrava Board, which the fact-finding commission came to be known, was about to release its reports.

In a memorandum, the minister informed Marcos that the National Media Production Center (NMPC) and the Philippine News Agency (PNA) would field photographers and video teams to cover public demonstrations from August 17-22, 1984. PNA would write a calendar story on the “official version” of the assassination, which meant the military version that it was a lone civilian assassin, Rolando Galman, who shot Aquino as part of a communist conspiracy.

The plan further stipulated, “[w]e are preparing column feeds on the Aquino statue and the ‘eternal flame’ in Makati, generally ridiculing efforts by anti-government groups’ effort to cast Ninoy prematurely as a national hero” (emphasis from the original document). Cendana said that his agency had been “coordinating with private TV networks to ensure that commercial programming for August 20 and 21 will be particularly interesting—to induce people to stay at home and watch, instead of going out on the streets.” Utilizing the state’s intelligence machinery, the information agency also prepared to circulate “black” leaflets during this period.

The Manila Sun by VERA Files

Cendana’s memorandum included an attachment, the first issue of “our own tabloid,” The Manila Sun. Nowhere in the paper, however, did it say that it was published by the Office of the Media Affairs (OMA), NMPC , or any government-controlled agency.  Cendaña wrote that “the first issues carries (sic) lead stories on the Agrava case and the clandestine foreign funding for opposition demos and riots.”

The Manila Sun headlined that according to “intelligence sources,” a certain group was forcing the Agrava Board “to recommend that it was not Galman who killed”  Aquino and was waging “one big smear campaign to discredit the body here and abroad.”

The article included statements from three lawyers who worked under the Office of the Government Corporate Counsel. Manuel M. Lazaro, Virgilio C. Abejo, and Expedito D. Tan reportedly said that the memorandum sent by the fact-finding board indicated that it was Galman who killed Aquino on orders by the New People’s Army (we know now that the Board unanimously rejected this theory). The lawyers were also reported to have said that “the government exhausted all measures to protect the life of the late senator from persons bent on harming him,” that “the groups aiming to liquidate Aquino included persons who wanted to take revenge on him for the ‘killings of their relatives by you [Aquino] and your [Aquino’s] men.’”

Lazaro, Abejo, and Tan also listed several instances when Marcos Sr. and his wife, Imelda, showed mercy and saved the former senator’s life — the reopening of Aquino’s case after he had been convicted of criminal offenses, their “timely intervention” when Aquino went on a hunger strike in his military cell, and the health care provided him at the Philippine Heart Center for Asia when he was suffering from a heart ailment.

The headline story was bolstered by an opinion piece with the title “The Task At Hand.” The anonymous writer said, “The pressures brought on the (Agrava) board are therefore malicious, tantamount to obstructing the board from its sworn task to flush out the truth, with substantial evidence as the only yardstick.”

Another article entitled “Demos for Dollars” claimed that a “foreign-based” group connected with Kilusan ng mga Demokratikong Pilipino was responsible for the slew of protests in the country at the time. Citing “intelligence reports,” the article said that “student ranks and those of the labor groups were infiltrated by elements from the dissident movement and other radical groups which seek to sow terror and spark an unarmed urban warfare in order to topple the present government.”

Highly-conscious about his image in the United States, Marcos Sr.’s state machinery closely monitored the negative publicity that his administration was receiving abroad.  In a memorandum dated August 22, 1984, Cendaña updated his boss about the reportage in U.S. media about the Aquino affair. The information minister shared that major publications (New York Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, Newsday, and Boston Globe) as well as TV and radio stations mentioned the assassination and reported about the demonstrations in Manila.

He also alluded to an article written by opposition leader Raul Manglapus in the New York Times on August 21, 1984 entitled “To Honor Aquino, Drop Marcos.” In response to the piece, Cendaña told Marcos that “our New York information staff prepared a rejoinder signed by Amb. Rey Arcilla of the U.N. (United Nations) Mission.” The response signed by the Filipino diplomat noticeably focused on poisoning the well, calling Manglapus a “discredited politician,” a “steak commando” and a “political has-been.”

The Marcos regime was also in the business of spying on opposition leaders in order to monitor and influence the narrative on the Aquino assassination in the U.S. In a memorandum to Marcos with the subject line “Butz Aquino’s Appearances in the U.S.” dated March 15, 1984, Cendaña briefed Marcos on the highlights of the remarks of the former senator’s younger brother before the Ninoy Aquino Movement (NAM) in Chicago and the National Press Club in Washington.

In his speeches, Butz, who had by then become a prominent opposition leader, reportedly declared that the Aquino family did not recognize the Agrava Board. He also cast doubts on the integrity of the upcoming election and advocated a boycott. As relayed in the memo, Butz reportedly said that “even before the people cast their votes, the results are already known.” Cendaña then told Marcos that “based on the information material we furnished them, our attaches abroad have prepared materials to counter (Butz) Aquino’s claim. The rejoinder will be sent to Filipino civic organizations in the areas.”

THE AGRAVA BOARD FINDINGS

After almost a year into its probe, the Agrava Board submitted its reports to Marcos in October 1984. The five-member panel was unanimous in rejecting the version blaming Galman for Aquino’s murder, concluding instead that the assassination was the result of a military conspiracy.  But the panel members disagreed on the extent of the plot.

The majority report, which represented the opinion of four Board members (Luciano Salazar, Dante Santos, Ernesto Herrera, and Amando Dizon) accused 26 people, including then Armed Forces Chief Gen. Fabian Ver and two other military generals of plotting and killing Aquino.  Agrava, however, argued that there was insufficient evidence to implicate Ver.

Since the Agrava Board was not a court of law,  Marcos forwarded its findings to the Tanodbayan (ombudsman) “for final resolution through the legal system” and trial in the Sandiganbayan.

The Sandiganbayan Verdict Sum by VERA Files

On December 2, 1985, the Sandiganbayan acquitted Ver and 24 other military men as well as a civilian (Hermilo Gosuico) from all liability in the case. The court fully embraced the military version of events, which was the same position that Marcos took shortly after Aquino was killed, and disavowed the testimony of the prosecution’s main witness, Rebecca Quijano (a passenger on Aquino’s flight and popularly known at the time as the “Crying Lady”).

This was noted in a telegram from the United States Ambassador to Manila Stephen W. Bosworth to Secretary of State George P. Shultz where he wrote that “the court merely glossed over without refuting the ‘concrete’ photographic, audio and video evidence adduced by the Agrava Board, and ignored altogether the evidence indicating a high-level conspiracy behind the assassination.”

The envoy went on to say, “As we reported in our August analysis of the Aquino trial . . . very little effort was made to disguise the orchestrated nature of the Sandiganbayan proceedings. It is clear that the real purpose of the trial was to mount a slow but relentless attack on the Agrava Board’s findings under the guise of legality and to condition the public to expect the eventual outcome.”

“It is of record that the Tanodbayan, Bernardo Fernandez, blocked efforts to introduce potentially crucial evidence which surfaced during the course of the trial,” the telegram added.

The Tanodbayan filed the case that would be known as People v. Custodio, et al.(referring to BGen. Luther Custodio, commander of the Aviation Security Command) before the Sandiganbayan. Ver and Maj. Gen. Prospero Olivas, then commander of the Philippine Constabulary Metropolitan Command, were among the eight who were indicted only as accessories.

Shortly after Marcos was deposed, the courts were urged to reopen the case. In March 1986, Deputy Tanodbayan Manuel Herrera, one of the prosecutors in Aquino’s case wrote a statement (and in June 1986 testified in court) that there had been a “failure of justice” in the criminal proceedings.

Herrera told a special Supreme Court commission (formed to determine if the Aquino case should be reopened) that on January 10, 1985, Marcos summoned him, Sandiganbayan Justice Manuel Pamaran (presiding justice), Justice Bernardo Fernandez (Tanodbayan) and other prosecutors to a meeting in Malacañang. Also present in the meeting were Justice Manuel Lazaro and then first lady Imelda. Herrera said that in the two-hour long meeting, Marcos induced them to undertake a sham trial on Aquino’s case.

In his comment dated April 14, 1986, Herrera narrated how Marcos was at some points angry and then calm and pragmatic throughout the meeting where he made it clear that although it was politically expedient to charge the defendants in court, the endgame had to be a dismissal of the case.

Herrera relayed Marcos’s sentiments, “Politically, as it will become evident that the government was serious in pursuing the case towards its logical conclusion, and thereby ease public demonstrations; on the other hand, legally, it was perceived that after (not IF) they are acquitted, double jeopardy would inure. The former President ordered then that the resolution be revised by categorizing the participation of each respondent.”

The Supreme Court G.R. 72760 further detailed Herrera’s testimony on how the men accused of conspiring to kill Aquino were acquitted.  A part of it reads:

Herrera further added details on the “implementation of the script,” such as the holding of a “make-believe raffle” within 18 minutes of the filing of the Informations with the Sandiganbayan at noon of January 23, 1985, while there were no members of the media; the installation of TV monitors directly beamed to Malacanang; the installation of a “war room” occupied by the military; attempts to direct and stifle witnesses for the prosecution; the suppression of the evidence that could be given by U.S. Air Force men about the “scrambling” of Ninoy’s plane; the suppression of rebuttal witnesses and the bias and partiality of the Sandiganbayan.

By the end of the conversation, “after the script has been tacitly mapped out,” Herrera said that  Marcos told the prosecutors: “Mag moro-moro na lang kayo.”

His parting words, according to Herrera, were “Thank you for coming. Thank you for your cooperation. I know how to reciprocate.”

The Commission found that “the only conclusion that may be drawn therefrom is that pressure from Malacanang had indeed been made to bear on both the court and the prosecution in the handling and disposition of the Aquino-Galman case.”  This was in turn given credence by the Supreme Court, and on September 12, 1986, ordered a re-trial of the Aquino murder case.

Adea to Ver by VERA Files

Documents left by the Marcoses in Malacañang after they fled at the height of the 1986 People Power Revolt can give us a closer look into how Marcos’s henchmen helped create a spin for Ver and the others accused of Aquino’s murder.

Coming into the criminal proceedings in February 1985, the military defendants who, like Olivas, were caught red-handed trying to mislead the Agrava Board about the firearm that was used by the gunman.

During the hearings, Olivas forwarded the “Magnum theory,” which alleged that Galman used a Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum to shoot Aquino. The firearm was supposedly retrieved by Sgt. Arnulfo De Mesa, a member of Aquino’s supposed close-in security unit, from Galman. Olivas used as basis for his theory Chemistry Report No. C-83-872, which was an examination of fragments from a standard Magnum bullet, not the bullet fragments recovered from Aquino’s head.

The minority report found that Olivas excluded from the report he submitted on December 19, 1983 and his testimony on June 27, 1984, the second chemistry report (No. C-83-1136) which was the analysis of the two fragments from the actual bullet that killed Aquino. This document revealed that the murder weapon was either a .38 or a .45 caliber pistol, not a .357 Magnum.

The minority report said that the reason for exclusion was clear, “the first report supports his [Olivas’s] theory, but the second overthrows it.”

In response to Olivas’s misstep, Presidential Secretariat Ed Adea wrote a memorandum to Ver dated February 1, 1985 (coursed through Col. Balbino Diego) proposing a strategy for the trial of the military defendants (and one civilian) before the Sandiganbayan. On this same day, the defendants were brought before the court for the arraignment on the criminal proceedings.

Adea’s memorandum was connected to their “little talk last Saturday in the Study Room,” reffering to Marcos Sr.’s office in the presidential palace. He suggested to Ver: “We can give a break to the respondent soldiers by changing a minor aspect of the defense theory as framed by Gen. Olivas. How: By admitting the supposition that the fatal caliber .38 was fired from the .357 Magnum of Galman.” (Emphasis from the original)

He continued, “But we need a witness, preferably an expert expert (sic) on firearms, to demonstrate this.” Adea believed they could still change their position at that stage because the Sandiganbayan trial had “not yet begun.”

Cendana’s Information P… by VERA Files

The Marcos propaganda machine shifted gears nearing the release of the Sandiganbayan verdict. Three weeks before the decision came out, Malacañang was already preparing to condition the public on the acquittal. In a memorandum entitled “Information Program Re: Sandiganbayan Decision” (presumably addressed to Marcos) dated November 12, 1985, Cendaña wrote about a media plan to “prepare people’s mind for a verdict favorable to the accused; and then justify the decision, once”—not if—“it is handed down.”

The campaign was divided into two phases: the “pre-decision phase” and the “post-decision information program.” The pre-decision phase is further divided into four platforms: print media, national radio, television, and the international audience.

For print media, one plan was to publish a four-part series “only carr[y]ing the byline of the Bulletin reporter covering the Sandiganbayan.” The strategy was to emphasize the “sterling records” of the judges and to recap some of the “key characters” in the trial. The reporter was to make references to the “sordid personal life” of the Galman family’s counsel, Lupino Lazaro, and “the Quijano woman’s legal and psychiatric profile.”

The same narrative would be rehashed in a 30-minute special to be produced by the news department of the Maharlika Broadcasting System, and aired on government-controlled television networks.

Another “special-report type program is to be prepared for showing over the Pilipino station, Channel Two,” Cendaña said in the memo. For the international audience, the same program would be aired “on existing NMPC TV outlets in Chicago Los Angeles, and Honolulu, which are beamed to the Filipino communities in these U.S. cities.” The information minister even proposed “buying time in San Francisco and New York local stations” for this “special report.”

To maintain a veil of credibility, Cendaña noted that “the two programs are to be low-key, ‘objective’ in tone and non-argumentative. They will be made up mostly of clips from the Sandiganbayan proceedings.”

As for the post-decision media plan, the program starts on the day the decision was handed down. Day 1 was all about making sure that the OMA had control over the framing of the news regarding the verdict. As early as 20 days before the verdict, Cendaña said that a PNA report would be prepared “to ensure that we hit the right tone for the Pamaran statement and the reactions from General Ver and the president.” The OMA would also take charge of drafting statements for Marcos and Ver, coordinating with Pamaran about his talking points explaining the court’s decision, and shepherding how Filipino diplomats were to respond to questions from the foreign press.

Day 2 of Cendana’s plan dealt with the herding of “friendly” reactions to the decision, while Day 3 was about running “friendly analyses.” The PNA, Cendaña said, could “commission a noted criminal lawyer to write his own assessment of the case.” In this phase, the minister suggested that the OMA produce a “Where are they Now?” series “to give our side a chance to point out that the crying lady now lives in the United States with all her family—including three brothers whose applications for visas had initially been denied.”

Before he concluded the proposal, Cendana said that a separate information program was being prepared by his agency “to deal with the issue of Gen. Ver’s reinstatement as Chief of Staff.”

Within November 1985, before and after Cendana submitted his information strategy memo, Marcos publicly stated that he would reinstate Ver if he was acquitted, at one point stating that the reinstatement would be “automatic.”

But their renewed relationship as president and armed forces chief was brief.  In a little over two months, these two ruthlessly powerful men and their families were fleeing the Palace from civilian crowds and defecting soldiers that they had hoodwinked far too many times.

Originally published by Vera Files on June 23, 2020.

Often, as internal oppression intensifies, the closer and more scathing external scrutiny becomes. In response, the authority being made accountable calibrates its response as the crisis deepens: from outright denial to obfuscation to censorship and to an eventual crackdown on its critics.

On June 4, 2020, the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) released its comprehensive report on the Philippines. “The long-standing overemphasis on public order and national security at the expense of human rights has become more acute in recent years, and there are concerns that the vilification of dissent is being increasingly institutionalized and normalized in ways that will be very difficult to reverse,” it said.

The report added that “in just the first four months of 2020, including during the COVID-19 pandemic, OHCHR documented killings of drug suspects and human rights defenders. Charges were filed against political opponents and NGO workers, including for sedition and perjury. A major media network was forced to stop broadcasting after being singled out by the authorities. Red-tagging and incitement to violence have been rife, online and offline.” It said while measures were taken to mitigate the pandemic’s economic impact on vulnerable communities, “threats of martial law, the use of force by security forces in enforcing quarantines, and the use of laws to stifle criticism have also marked the Government’s response.”

The Office of the Presidential Spokesperson, in a statement on June 6, 2020, took note of the UN agency’s recommendations but rejected its “faulty conclusions.” It said the government will continue to respect its international legal obligations, including human rights.

How or why the OHCHR’s conclusions are faulty, the government offered no explanation. Just an outright denial. A refusal to be made accountable — reminiscent of another time in our history when government’s denial came with both threat and censorship.

Almost forty years ago today, on July 4 to 6, 1980 the New York Times published a three-part story by John B. Oakes entitled, “The House of Marcos.”

In the local press, the Oakes article appeared only in We Forum, with a significant portion excised. In running the story We Forum heeded then President Marcos’s dire warning to them: “Not to press your luck too far.”

We Forum ran the excerpts from the Oakes story in its July 19, July 26, and August 2, 1980 issues. Side by side with it was the rebuttal from then Minister of Foreign Affairs Carlos P. Romulo, which was carried by all the major newspapers in Metro Manila.

Oakes started his story with these questions: “How much longer will President Marcos be able to retain his grip in Malacanan? How has he managed to do it thus far?”

In July 1980, Marcos was in his fifteenth year in office as president. He was twice elected to the post, totaling eight years. He would have been president only until 1973. Before his second term expired in 1972, he declared martial law and by then, for almost eight years, ruled as a dictator. There seemed to be no end in sight to the martial law that he imposed. And only he could end it.

“The Marcoses have kept their tenancy of Malacanan by subverting the Constitution, suborning the army, corrupting the elections, trampling on civil rights, muzzling the press, squandering the country’s resources, plunging into heavy foreign debt and enriching their family and friends,” Oakes wrote. To be able to pursue all these with impunity, Marcos had to have the United States firmly in his corner.

Here Oakes switched to Marcos’s reputation as a skillful politician. “There is no doubt that Marcos has been skillfully playing ‘the American card.’ He publicly inveighs against possible ‘intervention by the United States in the affairs of the Philippines.’ Yet he managed last year to obtain from the Carter administration a $500 million, five-year commitment in military and economic aid as ‘compensation’ for American use of the huge air and naval bases at Clark Field and Subic Bay.”

The second installment in the Oakes series made a grim portrait of the impoverished Filipinos suffering under the Marcos regime. “Three out of five Filipino children, according to the government’s own figures, are malnourished—partly because their parents are ignorant of proper nutrition but also because they are ‘economically restrained’ from buying nutritious foods.’”.

The latter third in the second installment of Oakes’s piece was not published by the We Forum. It was on the First Lady Imelda Romualdez Marcos, who on July 2 that year, just celebrated her 54th birthday. Birthdays then of the conjugal dictator were celebrated as days of public thanksgiving. Oakes excoriating Imelda during her birthday week would not have suited her well.

In addition to the “Bliss” projects, the first lady has instituted a system of subsidized food shops, where some basic necessities can be purchased at heavily discounted prices. But such socially useful innovations tend to be obscured in the public mind by the enrichment of her family and friends, and also by her style of extravagant spending and display, which she is convinced the Filipino people need, admire and want to emulate. “I think of myself as the star and the flame,” she says, “to inspire the people and move them to progress.”

Once, when asked why so many of her entourage had become so wealthy and powerful since Marcos’s imposition of martial law, the first lady was reported to have replied: “Some are smarter than others.”

That’s the sardonic title of an impressively documented underground pamphlet now circulating in Manila. It was written by “a group of concerned businessmen and professional managers.” It lists, with names and details, some of the principal beneficiaries of the “new society” along with the scores of major corporations and business institutions in which they have an important voice or outright control.

At least half a dozen members of the Marcos family, several high officials, including a general, and more than a dozen newly rich friends and close associates are among those “smarter than others”, with wealth and influence to show for it.

The last of the installments asked whether Marcos will go the way of the deposed Shah of Iran. “Like the shah, he and his consort pursue an ostentatiously luxurious style of life, as do their families and friends—while an estimated 40 percent of their people live in extreme poverty, some approaching the starvation level.”

For Oakes, Marcos was then sitting atop a rumbling social volcano. Marcos only managed to keep himself on top and contain the opposition through “cases of arrest without warrant, imprisonment without charge, torture without mercy, murder without cause.”

Oakes’s story for the New York Times was syndicated in various newspapers outside of the Philippines.

On July 12, 1980, then Minister of Foreign Affairs, Carlos P. Romulo held a press conference in his Waldorf Astoria Hotel suite in New York to refute Oakes’ assertions. He turned the transcript of his question-and-answer session into a six-question primer distributed to the media. As mentioned, all newspapers of note in the country published it.

Is the Marcos regime repressive?

“Authoritarian, yes; repressive, no.” Romulo denied that there was widespread trampling of civil rights. If civil rights were “in varying degrees regulated and limits set to their free exercise,” it was “in accordance with the imperatives of public order, community welfare, and the values of society.” Romulo continued, “The government is ‘authoritarian’ in the sense that the President exercises the strongest executive powers. There is greater central planning especially of social economic development. But there is also greater participation of people in the political process, and more regional and local autonomy. In effect, a balance has been achieved between individual rights and the demands of law or of authority. Where before there was license and even anarchy: to this extent it is ‘authoritarian’.”

Is there rising opposition to the Marcos regime?

The notion of a rising opposition, Romulo said, was merely “based on the superficial observations of hurried visitors to Manila, or on armchair speculations in some New York office.” In turn, this amusing observation came from elements who were at “the fringes of Philippine society”: “long-term opponents of President Marcos, habitual critics of government, impractical idealists, or the disaffected.”

How has President Marcos maintained his position of leadership?

“Contrary to gossip, speculation, and highly biased judgment of some foreign observers, President Marcos remains as titular, factual, and effective head of the Philippine government and leader of the Filipino people, by legislative fiat, by direct expression of the will of the people through various referendums, and by the undeniable fact that he is best suited to lead his people out of their age-old problems and into new life of greater opportunity and prosperity for all…,” Romulo said. “As President Marcos himself says, ‘It is simply inconceivable that a people who have gone through a hundred years of struggle for their rights and liberties would tolerate, let alone support, a repressive government’.”

Is American aid serving to prop up the Marcos regime? Is President Marcos “skillfully playing ‘The American Card’”?

Romulo’s retort was if there was an “American Card” and if Marcos was playing it, then he was not doing so skillfully since “the current levels of American economic aid average $75 million per year. For 1980, American military security support assistance will amount to $20 million. . . It is a hyperbole—and perhaps ironic—to say that they represent a ‘skillful’ playing of the American card.”Proceeds from the military bases agreement, Romulo contended, cannot be considered as propping up Marcos since they will be in the form of military assistance from 1980-85, regardless of who was president. What it props up is “the American security arrangements for the entire region as a part of the US global security system.”

Much has been said about endemic poverty in the Philippines, the gap between the rich and the poor is said to be widening, and there is widespread privation, and even starvation. Are these reports true? What are the effects of President Marcos’ policies on the situation?

Romulo conceded that, “There is no starvation, but malnutrition.” But that was only expected because, for Romulo, during those times everybody’s poor and suffering: “Poverty is endemic in most societies today, be they developed or developing, the Philippines is no exception.” The current situation is not Marcos’s fault. “In the case of developing societies, disparities in wealth, property, status and power can be traced to their colonial past.” And how could anyone speak of widening gap between rich and poor and there was hardly any wealth to speak of? “There can be no equalization of wealth if in the first place that wealth does not yet exist, there can be no creation of national wealth if that nation does not enjoy the opportunity to share the world’s production of goods.” But Marcos was doing his best to make things better.

Is it true that President Marcos has plunged the Philippines into heavy foreign debt, and that he squanders Philippine resources?

Romulo claimed that the Philippines’s external public debt until then was much less than that of similarly situated countries, like Mexico or Indonesia. All other economic indicators like the debt service ratio, the in-flow of foreign investments, the country’s international reserves, and the export receipts all point to “a picture of progress, not of stagnation or squandering.”

When the Philippines plunged into a deep political and economic crisis after the assassination of Ninoy Aquino in 1983, all the untruths in Romulo’s response were laid bare.

Besides Romulo, Teodoro Valencia and Gerardo Sicat also took to the Marcos controlled press to impugn the Oakes story. Valencia, known then as the dean of Marcos apologists, wrote in his Daily Express column that Oakes’s article was biased, unfair, and malicious. Sicat, then Marcos’s economic planning minister, quibbled with the statistics that Oakles cited in his piece. Like Romulo’s, his rebuttal was featured in all the metro dailies.

Ernesto Avila, in a letter to the We Forum, pointed out the absurdity of the situation. “Unfortunately, yet quite expectedly, these apologists wrote against an article that the supposed ‘free’ Philippine press never published. Not until your voice-in-the-wilderness of a paper printed the Oakes feature story. We were being asked to damn a foreign newspaperman whose article we were not even allowed to read.”

For all the defenses that the dictator’s men put up, they dare not mention one topic: the excesses of Imelda Marcos. The copy published in the We Forum was sanitized, so they may have thought it prudent not to call attention to the issue.

Forty years later, the Oakes story is available in online digital archives and all the extant We Forum issues at the Rizal Library of the Ateneo de Manila University is accessible online (http://rizal2.lib.admu.edu.ph/weforum/). This minor controversy reminds us that what is often suppressed amidst a threatened press bears the truth.

In April 21, 1980, a couple of months before the New York Times published the Oakes story, Marcos himself spoke before the American Newspaper Publishers Association in Hawaii, maintaining that he “remain[ed] convinced that the American tradition of fair play and giving the other guy a chance to talk still governs.”

But in his book In Search of Alternatives: The Third World in an Age of Crisis, published also in 1980 by his government’s main propaganda arm, the National Media Production Center, Marcos did not hide his annoyance of the foreign press, especially the American ones.

“Western press reports about government failures, tyranny, alleged denial of human rights, poverty, assassination and coup d’etat often stem from a pre-judgment of the societies in which these events occur . . . the Western press hardly reports, discusses or interprets Third World objectives, strategies and programs for development,” he wrote.

In the same April 21 speech in Hawaii, Marcos claimed that though his government was authoritarian, it was not tyrannical, “We have never driven out a correspondent.” But as the Honolulu Star Bulletin observed in the same news report on his speech, “his government refused reentry to Arnold Zeitlin, the Associated Press Manila bureau chief who had written a piece considered critical of the Philippine president.”

In the history of the Marcos regime, the Oakes story is a mere footnote. It was a front-page piece, above the fold story in the We Forum, but it was not the main headline.

Two years later, the dictator had had enough of the We Forum. Marcos’s animosity towards the paper escalated, promising at one point, the Los Angeles Times reported, “that he would make Burgos and his colleagues ‘eat’ the newspaper.”

On charges of “conspiracy to overthrow the government through black political propaganda, agitation and advocacy of violence” because the paper aimed to “discredit, insult and ridicule the president to such an extent that it would inspire his assassination,” the paper was raided and shuttered on December 7, 1982 and its editor-publisher, Jose Burgos Jr. and thirteen others were hauled to jail (there were two more but they were in the United States). Eventually, they were put under house arrest. The trigger for the arrest and closure was a story on the fake Marcos medals written by Bonifacio Gillego. As one Catholic cleric remarked in the Oakes story, “Oh, yes, we have freedom of speech. But what we don’t have is freedom after speech.”

When the We Forum was closed, the January 2, 1983 issue of the Los Angeles Times quoted Teodoro Valencia’s column in the Daily Express: “Newsmen know that constructive dissent and criticism against the government have never provoked such serious reaction from the government. Is freedom the right of any man to say or print whatever he pleases?”

After 774 days, on January 21, 1985, We Forum reopened. In its December 26, 1984 decision (G.R. No. L-64261), the Supreme Court found that the warrants were defective.

For the Supreme Court, “Such closure is in the nature of previous restraint or censorship abhorrent to the freedom of the press guaranteed under the fundamental law, and constitutes a virtual denial of petitioners’ freedom to express themselves in print.”

As authorities today again resort to semantics to mask the brute application of law, We Forum’s saga – from the Oakes story to the fake Marcos medals – is a reminder of machinations of those in power to silence the more critical voices in media.

The soon-to-be law Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020 is characterized by Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque as tough but not draconian. The conviction of Rappler CEO Maria Ressa and former writer/researcher Reynaldo Santos Jr. for cyberlibel is not an assault on press freedom but an issue of accountability. So says Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Salvador Panelo in his press release. So says Presidential Communications Secretary Martin Andanar in his response to a statement from the US State Department. As if Romulo is still speaking: authoritarian but not repressive. As if Marcos is still around: authoritarian but not tyrannical.

But as before, external scrutiny matters. It forces the administration to go on record. A fragment in our country’s long history of oppression gets written. We are able to relearn this history during these trying times because their struggle left an imprint of courage, however imperfect. And the writing of that history always starts with the likes of Burgos and the We Forum.

Jose Burgos Jr., in his publisher’s note in the resurrected We Forum wrote: “But here we are once again, alive and kicking, ready to continue with the struggle for truth, justice and freedom, to contribute to our modest share to the efforts of all freedom-loving people to dismantle all the devilish instruments of oppression and suppression under which the nation has long suffered.”

Here we are once again, indeed.

Originally published by Vera Files on November 2, 2021.

So how did Ferdinand “Bongbong” R. Marcos, Jr. end up in a graduate program in business administration at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania without an undergraduate degree?

On November 25, 1978, Marcos swore in his 21-year-old son as special assistant to the president. In a press release on this, Malacañang stated that Bongbong held a special diploma in social studies from Oxford University.

Two months later, Malacañang announced that while undergoing a six-month basic officer’s course at the Philippine Marine Training Center, Bongbong had been commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Philippine Constabulary. But as the Honolulu Advertiser noted, Bongbong “[did] not have to wear a uniform because he was sworn in last [November] as one of the president’s special assistants and will be detailed to the presidential palace.” A US Department of State cable noted that Bongbong “[had] been elected president of his officers’ class” and that a columnist “noted tongue-in-cheek that this class is now sure to produce a high percentage of generals.”

The papers left behind when the Marcoses fled Malacañang in 1986 describe the extent of the family’s efforts to ensure that Bongbong was accommodated in one of the most prestigious business schools in the United States, the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

On January 27, 1979, Marcos received a confidential personal letter from Francis Ablan, then an executive of Caltex (Philippines), Inc., conveying a cable from Frank Zingaro, a vice president of the multinational oil giant Caltex Petroleum Corp. and once president of the Philippine-American Chamber of Commerce of New York. Both had personal ties to the Marcoses.

Ablan wrote that Zingaro “[had] some good connections with people of Wharton School of Business and with some other graduate schools of business. He also offered that if it is your desire, we can send Bongbong’s application through him and he will personally handle the submission of same to the right offices/people. By the way, Frank reminded me that his assistance is purely a personal matter between you and him. He welcomes the opportunity of being of help in return for the many courtesies extended to him during his visits with you and the First Lady.”

In his cable dated January 25, 1979, Zingaro explained to Ablan the admission process at Wharton and Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business. He wrote that “Arjay Miller currently dean of the Stanford Business School and formerly once president of Ford Motor Company has been advised of applicant’s impending application submission and we’re hopefully confident he will use his good offices to assist.”

But then he hedged: “I must remind you that admissions committees of graduate schools and more particularly Stanford and Wharton are an unusual breed and they take pride in their independence to make evaluations of candidates without outside pressures or without regard to the applicant’s social or political status.”

Photo 3 1979 01 25 Privatel… by VERA Files

After initially considering Stanford, a decision seemed to have been made by May 1979 that Bongbong would attend Wharton instead. On May 3 that year, Jose A. Syjuco Jr., deputy chief of mission of the Philippine embassy in London, sent a telex to Malacañang to inform Bongbong that he must “rush Wharton forms to Ernie Pineda [Ernesto C. Pineda, Philippine consul general in New York] soonest. He will make [a] strong attempt to push it through but he needs the basic application.”

Photo 4 1979 05 03 Syjuco t… by VERA Files

With all the diplomatic efforts and muscle-flexing of business executives, it remains unclear how Bongbong got into Wharton without an undergraduate degree, extensive work experience, or what persuasive arguments Marcos presented that the school gave credit to. Bongbong would later give various reasons for why he was unable to finish his studies at Wharton.

And then there was the lie, of course, that he did complete the program.

Bongbong started at Wharton on or about August 10, 1979, which means that he was accepted by the prestigious business school within three months after two Philippine diplomats offered to “push through” his application. This is based on a Department of State cable dated August 7, 1979 stating that the young Marcos was to arrive in Philadelphia “to begin a two-year course of study at the Wharton School of Business” and that the state department had known about his study plans “for some time.”

The cable also noted that Marcos’ son, “with appropriate bodyguards,” had been earlier “accredited by the Philippine Mission to the United Nations as its ‘military advisor’ with the rank of attaché, with an assistant who also carries the rank of attaché.” The people who drafted the communication for the undersigned, US Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, noted that the ‘nominal U.N. assignment is presumably intended to give Bong Bong diplomatic immunity while he is in [the U.S.]’.”

Why he needed to have diplomatic immunity and bodyguards who stayed with him in a house in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, is unclear. Bongbong, as Ferdinand Marcos II, continued to be listed as an attaché of the Philippine U.N. Mission in 1980, based on that year’s edition of Permanent Missions to the United Nations: Officers Entitled to Diplomatic Privileges and Immunities.

How did the “military advisor”—fresh out of months-long training— perform in Wharton?

Bongbong himself has provided a means for evaluating this. On his official website, a copy of his Wharton MBA transcript issued on April 2, 2015 is posted showing that the presidential aspirant in next year’s elections enrolled for four terms between the fall 1979 and 1981. He did not enroll for the 1981 spring term.

Looking at a course description of Wharton MBA program in the mid-1980s and Bongbong’s transcript, it appears that in the fall term of 1979, he failed to earn credit for a core subject: administration. He performed a bit better during the spring 1980 term, passing all the courses taken by Wharton MBA students regardless of their major. Of the five courses he took during the fall 1980 term, he earned credit in only two.

Bongbong did not pass any of the courses during the fall 1981 term; he received two incompletes, suggesting that he attended classes but failed to submit all prerequisites to earn course credit. Overall, he earned eleven credit units before withdrawing from the program. He was far from finishing his MBA; he retook administration in the fall 1981 term, but received a mark of NR (not reported) for the course. The transcript states that his major is “undeclared.”

It would have been necessary for him to declare a major and complete major courses before he could write a thesis or do a capstone/advanced study project. Yet in several biographic notes and at least one interview, Bongbong claimed that he was already writing his MBA thesis or dissertation when he had to cut his studies short because he was elected vice governor of Ilocos Norte.

Marcos Jr. was elected vice governor of Ilocos Norte not in 1981, as many online profiles of him claim, but on January 30, 1980 at the age of 22. Batas Pambansa Blg. 52, enacted on December 22, 1979, lowered the minimum age for governors and vice governors from 23 to 21. In fact, based on an Agence France Presse article dated December 20, 1979, Bongbong was originally being pushed to run for governor. His aunt, Elizabeth Marcos Roca, who had held the Ilocos Norte governorship since 1967, even stated that she was willing to give way to her nephew. But the article noted that Bongbong was “not enthusiastic about making politics a career.”

According to an article published in the Honolulu Advertiser on January 4, 1980, Bongbong had “told a crowd of well-wishers (in the Philippines) that he planned to complete his studies leading to a master’s degree in business administration in the United States.” Even with his election assured, he maintained that his focus was on his studies.

Bongbong ran uncontested and became vice governor of Ilocos Norte after the January 30, 1980 elections while still a student at Wharton. The foreign media reported that so as not to interrupt his studies, Bongbong chose to be sworn into office at the Philippine embassy in Washington D.C. on February 28, 1980. Eduardo Z. Romualdez, Bongbong’s uncle and then Philippine ambassador to the U.S., administered his oath.

Indeed, it seems that throughout 1980, or several months after he was sworn in as vice governor, Bongbong remained in the U.S. His transcript reflects that he continued to take classes. As reported by international media, such as the Ohio-based New Herald and Kyodo News, in November 1980, Marcos asked the U.S. government to give Bongbong additional protection because of purported threats to his life. The New Herald article noted that Bongbong was “an attache to the Philippine delegation to the United Nations in New York.” Marcos himself eventually beefed up security for his son in the U.S.

There is ample written, photographic, and audiovisual evidence that Bongbong was in the Philippines during the April 7, 1981 constitutional plebiscite, the June 16, 1981 presidential election, and the third inauguration of his father as president on June 30, 1981. This period coincided with the time he did not enroll in Wharton.

There is evidence though that he returned to the US in the fall of 1981 to attend classes again. But it seemed that besides attending classes, Bongbong was attending to other business as well. A November 25, 1982 article in The Cincinnati Enquirer reported that in 1981, a state trooper stopped Bongbong for driving over the speed limit at the New Jersey Turnpike. The article said, “The state trooper who pulled over the young Marcos, a student at the University of Pennsylvania, was startled to see a semi-automatic rifle at the backseat and a revolver strapped to the leg of a young woman in the passenger seat.”

Bongbong flashed a diplomatic passport and was let go. “Except,” the article concluded, “the State Department said, that young Marcos was not registered as a diplomatic agent of his country.”

Thus, for Bongbong and his people to say that he discontinued his studies solely because he was elected vice governor—a position that, based on Batas Pambansa Blg. 51, practically only required him to serve as the governor’s substitute or spare tire, the latter function that he would fulfill in a few years—is, to put it charitably, inaccurate.

THE LIES

On March 24, 1983, Bongbong assumed the governorship of Ilocos Norte after his aunt resigned for health reasons. It was around this time that lies about his university education were carried by the local press. The Religious of the Good Shepherd, Philippines-Japan, in an October 27, 2021 Facebook page post, showed a March 25, 1983 news clipping from an unidentified newspaper announcing that Bongbong was the new Ilocos Norte governor. The news item claimed that Bongbong “is a graduate of Oxford University in London, where he earned B.A. and M.A. degrees in politics, philosophy, and economics. He later attended the Wharton School of Finance in Pennsylvania.”

On March 31, 1983, a member of the Religious of the Good Shepherd wrote Oxford about what she read in the news report. A month later, on April 20, the university wrote back to her with a definite answer.

“Ferdinand Martin Romualdez matriculated in 1975 at St. Edmund Hall, University of Oxford, to read Politics, Philosophy and Economics. He did not however complete his Preliminary examinations, and is not therefore a graduate of this University. It follows that he does not hold any degree. He was however awarded a Special Diploma in Social Studies in 1978.” The emphasis was in the original.

After getting exiled in Hawaii with his family in 1986 as a result of the People Power revolt, Bongbong returned to the Philippines in 1991 and was elected as representative of Ilocos Norte’s second congressional district from 1992 to 1995.

In the featured profile in the 1993 Congressional Highlights Quarterly Report, Bongbong’s educational background not only indicated that he obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree in PPE, it also stated that he obtained a master’s degree in business administration from the University of Pennsylvania.

On February 24, 2015, Marites Danguilan Vitug writing for Rappler, once again raised the question of how truthful Bongbong was regarding his university education. A senator since 2010, Bongbong posted his resume in his official senate page indicating that he had a Bachelor of Arts degree in PPE political and a master’s degree in business administration from the Wharton School of Business. Vitug’s article belied Bongbong’s claims.

In a statement released in response to Vitug’s piece, Bongbong maintained that his academic records were “accurate,” that he “got a diploma” from Oxford but did not finish his studies in Wharton because he was elected vice governor of Ilocos Norte.

In an ambush interview on March 2, 2015, a reporter asked Bongbong if he had a degree. He replied, “I suppose. I got a diploma, kaya nga may diploma ako e.” This which is reminiscent of his sister Imee’s “sa pagkakaalam ko, nag graduate ako” (as far as I know, I graduated). Imee Marcos, now senator, also made false claims of having graduated from Princeton University, the University of the Philippines College of Law, and the Asian Institute of Management.

In the same interview, Bongbong admitted that he did not finish his MBA in Wharton, saying “I was writing my dissertation. I never got to. . . Pinauwi na ako e (I was asked to come home).” This was a reiteration of claims about his achievements at Wharton—which do not conform with his transcript—that can be found as early as the 2009 version of his official website and written profiles or recorded interviewee introductions that drew from such sources.

On October 28, 2015, he was asked once more about his academic degrees. In his interview with Julius Babao, Karen Davila, and Ces Drilon on ABS-CBN’s Bandila, he definitively claimed that he received a bachelor of arts degree from Oxford. Pressed by Davila that official records showed that what he got was a special diploma, Bongbong insisted that, “Yes, but it is still a bachelor of arts degree.”

In another interview on January 21, 2016, in a DZMM program, Marcos claimed that the certification he obtained from Oxford University in 2015 states, “This is to certify that Ferdinand Marcos has completed a BA degree in social sciences.” He further said that he transferred from PPE to politics, and that is the college degree he completed.

In response to the more recent questions about Bongbong’s education, his spokesperson Vic Rodriguez said on October 23, 2021 that Bongbong has “always been forthright” about his academic records.

This is akin to Imelda vouching for her son.

Cecilio T. Arillo, in his 2012 book Imelda: Mothering and Poetic and Creative Ideas in a Troubled World asked the former first lady, “Will Bongbong pursue the vision of his father?” Imelda replied, “He’s committed to that. Humbly speaking, his leadership qualities, his intellectual and managerial skills and moral and ethical upbringing, I am confident he will not fail. Bongbong was educated at Oxford University, England in 1978 with AB Political Science, Philosophy and Economics, and at Wharton School of Business, University of Pennsylvania, USA with a Master’s in Business Administration.”

His father, the dictator, lied about his son’s degree. His mother, the undead half of the conjugal dictatorship, flaunted the same lie. And the son, who now wants to be president, continues the lie. For the past 43 years, the Filipino people have been lied to.

Originally published by Vera Files on July 3, 2016.

Second of three parts

What is striking about File No. 60 is the number of key Ang Mga Maharlika officers who were relatives of Marcos.

The most frequently mentioned among these relative-comrades is Simeon Marcos Valdez, Ferdinand’s first cousin. Valdez was allegedly the commanding officer of Maharlika’s Ilocos Norte regiment.

In a July 26, 1944 field report by Marcos, Valdez—listed as “Simmy”—is referred to as the head of both the Zambales and Manila regiment and the “provincial” intelligence units of Maharlika.

Another alleged Maharlika commander is Narciso Ramos, who was married to Simeon’s sister, Angela Marcos Valdez, making Narciso and Ferdinand “cousins by marriage.”

In an affidavit dated November 25, 1947, Ramos referred to himself as Maharlika’s Special Intelligence Section chief. In other documents in the Maharlika File, he signed or is described as “acting C.O.,” while in the July 1944 report, he is listed as commanding officer of Maharlika’s Pangasinan regiment, at one point heading 3,500 “active and inactive” troops.

Documents in the Maharlika File also describe Pacifico Edralin Marcos, Ferdinand’s younger brother, as commanding officer of Maharlika’s Manila unit since September 1944, and Pio Rubio Marcos, Ferdinand’s uncle, as an “assistant chief” of Maharlika during the organization’s early days.

Also among the documents is a typed-up identification card for Fidel V. Ramos, designated as one of Ang Mga Maharlika’s staff sergeants. Dated February 17, 1945, the document states that Fidel had been staff sergeant since November 1, 1943.

If true, Fidel—Narciso’s son and Ferdinand’s first cousin once removed—was commanding fellow guerrillas at the tender age of fifteen. Fidel would later become Ferdinand’s Armed Forces vice chief of staff and subsequently president himself.

Seemingly absent from this family affair was Mariano Marcos, Ferdinand’s father. The historian Alfred McCoy, who had written of Marcos’ war record in 1986, pointed out that the only time Mariano Marcos was mentioned as being connected to Ang Mga Maharlika was in Ferdinand’s July 26, 1944 field report.

Described there as Ang Mga Maharlika’s commanding officer for Northern Luzon is a certain “M.M., Ex-representative and ex-governor…a federalized officer in World War No. 1 holding the rank of Captain, Reserve, U.S.A.” Mariano was indeed a former assemblyman, ex-governor of Ilocos Norte, and a lieutenant of the Philippine National Guard.

In the same report, “M.M.” is listed as the commanding officer of Maharlika’s Baguio intelligence unit.  However, nowhere in the other documents of File No. 60 does Ferdinand mention Mariano.

Ferdinand Marcos’ Letter Se… by VERA Files

In the Malacanang-issued “Official Week in Review” dated October 30-November 5, 1970, Ferdinand is described as going to San Fernando, La Union on November 1, 1970 to visit a memorial to Mariano, who is described as having been “killed by Japanese soldiers during the war.”

This description of Mariano’s death is contradicted by reports that he actually died at the hands of guerrillas as he was known to have been a Japanese collaborator.

Journalist John Sharkey, in a January 24,1986 article in Washington Post, describes the following as appearing in a 1948 affidavit of an American colonel stationed in Northern Luzon: “When questioned [Mariano Marcos] readily admitted his activities, and stated that he had been recommended to the Japanese area propagandist by his son.” Sharkey takes “son” to refer to Ferdinand (the other son was Pacifico).

American guerrilla leader Robert Lapham, in the book Lapham’s Raiders: Guerrillas in the Philippines 1942-1945, maintains that “Ferdinand Marcos’s father…was unquestionably a collaborator with the Japanese, for which bad judgment he paid a ghastly price.”

In April 1945, Mariano, Lapham states, was drawn and quartered with the use of carabaos. What was left of him were then hung on a tree. Lapham mentioned that several of the guerillas who carried out the execution of Mariano Marcos were friends and relatives of Julio Nalundasan, the man Ferdinand Marcos had been accused of killing before the war.

It was the same Robert Lapham, then Major of the Fifth Cavalry, who in a May 31, 1945 communication stated that Ang Manga Maharlika, with a total of twenty-four men, including Ferdinand Marcos and Narciso Ramos, were “employed by [his] organization to guard the Regimental Supply Dump and perform warehousing details.”

“[Ang Manga Maharlika] are not recommended for recognition because of the limited military value of their duties,” Lapham added.

Despite all of the affidavits, photostatic copies of reports, and other supporting documents that Marcos produced, the U.S. Army remained unconvinced of the existence of an 8,000-man outfit called Ang Mga Maharlika. On March 31, 1948, it informed Marcos that it stood by its previous findings and that its decision was final and not subject to any further appeal.

Ferdinand Marcos’ Letter Se… by VERA Files

“When Marcos was turned down for the last time in March 1948, he switched his tactics” Charles McDougald noted in his book The Marcos File, “and put in a claim for $594,900 claiming the Army commandeered 2,366 head of cattle on the Marcos ranch in Mindanao. This claim was also rejected.”

Not someone to stand down at the first sign of rejection, Marcos made another claim. In the 1960s, according to Primitivo Mijares in his book The Conjugal Dictatorship of Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos, when he was already a senator, Marcos tucked in in “an omnibus bill which would have granted the Philippines additional war payments to the tune of $78 million…a personal claim…for $8 million to compensate for food and war material he allegedly supplied the American guerillas in Mindanao during the Japanese Occupation of the Philippines.” In 1962, the US Congress rejected the bill.

Originally published by Vera Files on May 24, 2020.

The recent exchange between Sen. Imee Marcos and Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III over Masagana 99 reminded us of the late president’s claim of “success” of his banner program to achieve rice self-sufficiency.

Masagana 99 aimed to increase rice production among Filipino farmers. The program that began in 1973 derived its title from the term “masagana” which means bountiful and 99, referring to the number of sacks (cavans) of rice yielded per hectare of land in every harvest season.

During the May 20 Senate hearing on the government’s response to the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic, Dominguez cut short Marcos, chair of the Senate committee on economic affairs, when she started batting for the adoption of a Masagana 99 (M-99) scheme in helping raise farmers’ production.

“I was the Secretary of Agriculture that cleaned up the mess of Masagana 99… that was left by Masagana 99. There were about 800 rural banks that were bankrupted by that program and we had to rescue them. So whether it was a total success or not has to be measured against that,” Dominguez said.

Marcos was caught off guard by the remark. She tried to parry it by insisting that Masagana 99 was a success since it allowed the country to export rice, a claim refuted by Dominguez, saying: “Ah, no. We never exported rice. We never exported rice, Ma’am.”

On May 21, Marcos issued a press release castigating Dominguez: “Shame on you, Secretary Dominguez, give the Filipino farmer some credit! When supported by sound government policy and defended against rampant importation, we can feed ourselves. Give the Filipino farmer a chance!”

A thorough look at the much-hyped Masagana 99 showed that for a brief time after it was launched, the Philippines did become a rice-exporting country—or barely that. But data and studies show that this point of pride for the Marcoses and their supporters was not solely attributable to the Masagana 99 credit program.

Moreover, echoing Dominguez, this “success” came at a significant cost, not only to the government, but also to the farmers that the program supposedly helped. Masagana 99 also had an adverse impact on the environment brought about by its dependence on chemical fertilizers and pesticides.

MASAGANA 99

After a series of natural disasters and pest infestations in 1972, the Philippines faced a nationwide rice shortage. This prompted the government to intensify rice production with the Masagana 99 Rice Program. Launched on May 21, 1973, Masagana 99 was a crash program primarily intended to raise the yield of palay crop lands per hectare to 99 cavans, from the then national average of 40 cavans per hectare. Not only did it seek recovery from losses incurred from the previous years of low productivity, it also aimed to scale down importation and eventually achieve rice self-sufficiency in record time.

At the core of Masagana 99 was a package of technology offered to farmers in the form of high-yielding variety (HYV) seeds, herbicides, low-cost fertilizer, and other modern agricultural inputs. The supervised credit scheme, on the other hand, was designed to make sure that the farmers can actually use the recommended technology package provided for by the program. The Central Bank extended subsidized rediscounting facilities to both public and private credit institutions to act as stimuli for banks to channel their loans to the agricultural sector. With reduced cost of borrowing made possible by highly subsidized interest rates, in theory, the farmers could avail themselves of the credit program even without collateral and other standard borrowing requirements.

Masagana 99 had peculiar beginnings. After several futile attempts to ramp up rice production in 1972-1973, a group composed of Peter Smith of Shell Chemical Company, Inocencio Bolo of UP College of Agriculture, and Vernon Eugene Ross of International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) presented a proposal to then Secretary of Agriculture Arturo Tanco Jr. consisting of an “integrated package of technology” which, they claimed, could produce the coveted 99 cavans of rice per hectare, “even on non-irrigated land.” Despite broad skepticism over the soundness of the technology (which was drastically different from traditional methods) and the feasibility of its wide-scale deployment, Tanco went ahead with it as a last-ditch effort. Marcos immediately approved the proposal.

The National Management Committee (NMC) consisting of various government and private agencies was created to implement the program, with the Ministry of Agriculture and the National Food and Agriculture Council coordinating it. The NMC worked alongside technical and information committees, and working under them were coordinators ranging from the regional level down to the level of farmer-cooperators. Provincial governors and municipal mayors were tasked to deliver the required number of beneficiaries from their areas.

The crash program was initially envisioned to run only for a single planting season, from May to October 1973. It initially targeted to benefit 400,000 farmers from 43 selected provinces, and to cover about 600,000 hectares of land. Marcos soon expanded its scope and targets and turned it into a high-priority national program that ran longer than expected, even by the project proponents.

Initial funding for the rice credit program came from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which provided a P 77.5-million loan. The World Bank was also part of the financing scheme. As explained by Mahar Mangahas in a 1974 discussion paper:

“The Central Bank passed the funds on initially through a loan to the (government-owned) Philippine National Bank (PNB) and increased government deposits at the (privately-owned) rural banks. It then provided extensive support through rediscounts of loan papers obtained by the PNB branch banks and the rural banks. Funds flowed at a very fast rate indeed. The banks were apparently under strict orders to fulfill loan quotas and not to worry too much about collateral or documentary requirements. Masagana 99 was launched in May 1973. By July 18 it was reported that P192 million had been lent; three weeks later the figure had become P249 million. Finally, by April 1974, P503 million was reported to have been lent, covering a total of 676,000 hectares, or an average of P745 per hectare.”

The targeted borrowers were farmers of small landholdings (more or less two hectares), of which, according to estimates then, numbered around 1.4 million. Less than half of this number would benefit from Masagana 99. Statistics collated by Emmanuel F. Esguerra in his 1981 paper on Masagana 99 that came out in the Philippine Sociological Review offers a clear picture on how the program played out from 1973 to 1980.

During the very first phase of Masagana 99 (May to October 1973), 402,757 borrowers accounted for a loan total of P 369.5 million. The third phase of Masagana 99 (May to October 1974) had the most number of borrowers at 531,249 for a total loan of P716.1 million. This was not improved upon for the duration of the program. Starting 1975 there was a marked decline in the number of farmers who availed of Masagana 99 loans; by then it was just a little over 100,000. In Masagana 99’s 14th phase (November 1979 to April 1980), the number of borrowers sunk to 54,250. There was also a steady decline in the repayment rate. When Masagana 99 started in 1973, 93.3 percent of the loans were repaid. By 1979, the repayment rate fell to 45.8 percent.

WHAT WENT WRONG

Various sources have highlighted how Masagana 99 was simply unsustainable. One key problem, as alluded to by Dominguez, was rural bank insolvency, a consequence of non-payment by farmer-borrowers of their loans. According to a report of the World Bank, dated May 12, 1983, titled Philippines – Agricultural Credit Sector Review:

“The rice area financed by institutional credit decreased from 920,000 ha (hectares) in 1973/74 to 330,000 ha in 1979/80 or from 79% to about 18% of the total rice area in the respective years. The decline in institutional credit was the result of arrearages under past [Masagana]-99 and other supervised credit subloans which were due to several factors including: natural calamities, inadequate post-harvest storage facilities, marketing problems, unremunerative cost-price relationships, the low priority given by farmers to repaying the Government-backed loans, poor selection of credit risks and the provision of excessive loan amounts. The arrearages disqualified a large number of small farmers from receiving fresh credit and also disqualified many rural banks from receiving rediscounting support from the Central Bank. The accumulated nonrepayments under M-99 amount to about P180 million in PNB and P300 million in rural banks.”

In short, farmer-borrowers were defaulting not only because of production shortfalls caused by the various natural disasters affecting Philippine agriculture in the 1970s and the 1980s, but also because the government was not prudently regulating the loans and providing sufficient mechanisms and inducements for repayment. M-99 became, more or less, a massive dole-out program.

That many were defaulting on M-99 loans was no secret. An article in The Straits Times in Singapore, dated August 25, 1981, noted that Masagana 99 and a similar program for fisherfolk, Biyayang Dagat, were both lacking in funds, with a Philippine government official claiming that the repayment rate for Masagana 99 loans was at 60 percent. Kenneth Smith of the USAID, in his article titled Palay, Policy and Public Administration: The ‘Masagana 99’ Program Revisited, noted that even such repayment rates were distorted, given that whenever a loan was restructured/extended, for “book-keeping purposes. . .the outstanding loan was fully paid up and a new loan agreement was initiated.” Smith also noted that many “uncollectable” M-99 loans were “written off” by lenders, further distorting the actual repayment rate.

A 1978 study by V. Cordova, P. Masicat, and R.W. Herdt for the IRRI found that availing loans from Masagana 99 made no difference in the net returns of farmers.

Overall, according to the May 30, 1991 Staff Appraisal Report of a World Bank-funded Philippine rural finance project, “about 80% of the [Masagana]-99 loans have never been recovered.” Randolph Barker of Cornell University tried to give it a positive twist by saying that it became “income transfer.”

What did all that money do? In his technical assessment of Masagana 99, Smith concluded that the program “was indeed successful in attaining national self-sufficiency in rice production” but “the program’s actual achievements were much more mundane than anticipated, and even this degree of success was more fortuitous than finessed.” Smith further noted that the program’s achievements were due “neither [to] the intensity of technical supervision nor the provision of non-collateral credit.” Instead, it could be attributed to the “expansion of hectarage planted to rice,” not increasing yields to 99 cavans per hectare using new technology.

For Emmanuel F. Esguerra, Masagana 99’s importance during the Marcos dictatorship was more political than economic. “[T]he mere existence of a credit program offering low-cost loans to farmers conveniently provides its sponsoring government the means of gaining political and ideological support by publicizing its concern for the rural poor, without necessarily altering the prevailing structure of asset ownership which is the main source of inequality.” There was even a strain of counter-insurgency effort in Masagana 99 as pointed out by Mangahas. “Areas where there is subversion or dissidence are pointedly included, a policy which appears specific to the [Marcos regime, or the so-called] New Society,” he noted.

As it was also a political project, the corruption that it entailed was the cost of doing business for the Marcos dictatorship. National Scientist Gelia Castillo, in a chapter on Masagana 99 in her book How Participatory Is Participatory Development? cited studies and news stories detailing how rural bank officials concocted “fake farmers” and “ghost borrowers” to siphon off millions of pesos intended for Masagana 99. Benedict Kerkvliet, in a 1974 Pacific Affairs article underscored that the “banks remain in the hands of the local elites.” The loss of public funds in Masagana 99 grist the mill of Marcos’s political patronage.

Another poisoned legacy of Masagana 99 that was often overlooked was its deleterious effect on the environment and on traditional agricultural methods. The heavy reliance on pesticides ironically led to pest outbreaks, the absence of one set of predators led to the prevalence of another. Indigenous local flora and fauna were devastated by the use of synthetic fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides, and other chemical components of Masagana 99’s “technological package.”

Reliance on chemical input, in synthetic fertilizer in particular, puts into doubt the claim of Masagana 99 rice self-sufficiency. The dollar supposedly saved from not importing rice just went out another door in importing fertilizer.

Again, despite all of the above, Sen. Marcos insists that Masagana 99 should still be seen as a success because it led to Philippine rice exportation. As detailed by Eduardo Tadem in Grains and Radicalism: The Political Economy of the Rice Industry in the Philippines, 1965-1985, between 1977 and 1983, some 502,000 metric tons of rice were exported by the Philippines. However, citing a previous study by Flordeliza Lantican and Laurian Unnevehr, Tadem gave the following breakdown of that amount, which shows that the volume of rice exported then was not consistent nor particularly high, save between 1979 to1981:

Crop Year	Metric Tons(1,000)
1967/68	40.3
1968/69	0.5
1977/78	13.4
1978/79	38.0
1979/80	236.0
1980/81	175.0
1981/82	11.0
1982/83	29.0

The country resumed rice importation in 1984, and ceased to export rice completely in 1985. According to Tadem, by July 1984, the reserve stocks of the country was down to 150,000 tons—sufficient for only 10 days. Thus, the country contracted to import rice from Thailand and China and, later in the year, from Indonesia, which had previously imported rice from the Philippines. In 1985, the Philippines imported a total of 389,654 tons of rice from the United States, Thailand, China, and Indonesia—in what Tadem described as “the highest import level since the ‘miracle rice’ era of IRRI began.”

Moreover, even when the country was still exporting rice, citing data from the National Grains Authority, Tadem said that “because of the corresponding increase in the costs of production brought about by the IRRI technology, Philippine rice had to be sold in the world at a loss. . . from 1977 to 1979, the total value of [the Philippines’s] rice exports reached P590.8 million while the export cost was P665.47 million for a net loss of P74.67 million.” True, the country exported rice, but who benefited?

Farmers bore the brunt of the increasing production costs. According to Tadem, “the irony that most of them bitterly felt was that higher production and yields per hectare did not result in improved real incomes as the increased costs cancelled whatever gains in production was achieved.” Tadem also noted that lower net incomes meant that it became impossible for farmers to repay their Masagana 99 loans. Furthermore, data cited by Tadem from Lantican and Unnevehr shows that real farm wages (farm wage/consumer price index) actually started to decrease within the period when Masagana 99 was being implemented: “From 1972 to 1977, real wages rose from P3.78 to P5.24. However, from 1977 to 1984, real farm wages have declined by 46% [from P5.24 to P2.82].”

The Marcos regime started to lessen reliance on the expensive Masagana 99 program in 1984. In one of his ghostwritten books, The Filipino Ideology, Ferdinand Marcos claimed that a new government initiative, the Intensified Rice Production Program, “was implemented in December 1984 to complement Masagana 99.”

It is perhaps more accurate to call it a last-ditch successor program to address the shortage that Masagana 99 could not. However, IRPP was similar to Masagana 99 in the sense that it did briefly increase rice production, but led to more indebtedness without increasing profits of farmers. According to a 1985 paper by IRRI scientists Bienvenido Juliano and Leonardo Gonzales: “Although the IRPP was launched to provide cheaper credit to rice farmers, the volume of credit it provided and the numbers of farmers covered were less than before.” It meant that “most rice farmers had to pay very high interest rates.” Tadem also explained that since the country had resumed importing rice at the time, the market had become flooded, which kept the price of locally produced rice artificially low, significantly affecting the earnings of the local farmers who were already heavily in debt.

But Marcos continued to tout his administration’s credit programs for rice production during the dying days of his regime. Based on a transcript of a campaign speech he gave in Naga City on January 14, 1986, Marcos told his supporters that in 1967 “we began to export rice to other countries”—failing to mention that the country stopped exporting rice from 1970 to 1977, and again between 1984 and1985. He emphasized that through Masagana 99, “we established a credit system which tries to give capital or operational funds to small tenants and farmers who were allowed to enter banks for the first time in the entire history of the Philippines and without collateral”—masking the fact that many banks and farmers later on found themselves in a worse financial position than before they contracted Masagana 99 loans.

WHY MASAGANA 99 REMAINS A POTENT MARCOS PROPAGANDA

Based on her Facebook page and press releases from her office for her Masagana 99 propaganda in recent years, Imee Marcos consistently relied on the Manila Bulletin column, dated November 5, 2016, titled Masagana 99 Redux, by National Scientist Emil Q. Javier.

An agronomist and plant geneticist, Javier was prompted to write the column after President Rodrigo Duterte said that he wanted to emulate the Marcos-era Masagana 99 and Biyayang Dagat programs. Imee highlights the short sections of Javier’s column where the brief (and qualified) success of Masagana 99 was described. She fails to include the sections where Javier criticizes the program, corroborating much of what was detailed above.

According to Javier: “Sadly, Masagana 99 proved to be short-lived and unsustainable mainly due to the costly subsidies and failure of many farmers-borrowers to repay the loans . . . . By [1980], Masagana 99 ceased to be of consequence as only 3.7 percent of the small rice farmers were able to borrow.”

Javier ultimately does not recommend resurrecting Masagana 99, saying that it will likely result in farmers defaulting on loans again. “Giving away seeds, fertilizers, pesticides and dryers, while politically attractive, is temporary, wasteful and prone to graft,” Javier emphasized. “We have been doing that all these years with little to show for the expense and the effort.”

Ferdinand Marcos himself, in the last of the books he purportedly authored, A Trilogy on the Transformation of Philippine Society, discussed only the establishment and initial implementation of Masagana 99, staying silent about its decline and demise in the 1980s, despite the book being published in 1988 and referencing the rice crisis at the time. If this is the kind of “data” Sen. Marcos is relying on, small wonder that she has the audacity to claim that Masagana 99 was an unqualified success.

According to Marcos aide Arturo Aruiza in the book Ferdinand Marcos: Malacanang to Makiki, the late dictator considered the Trilogy to be an unfinished book, hoping that Imee would finish it. Considering how she continues to propagate disinformation about the Marcos regime even during a pandemic—to the point that she is suggesting the revival of a failed program to address our current and upcoming coronavirus-caused economic woes—it seems that she is on track to fulfill her father’s wish.

Masagana 99 shows that the propaganda that comes with doling out patronage proved to be one of the most resilient ways to instill untruth. The lie becomes part of the residual gratitude of those who benefitted from the largesse. Today’s patrons have learned that lesson to perfection. As she ascends greater political heights, Sen.Marcos seems to want to keep on giving away the people’s money the same way her dictator of a father once did.

Originally published by Vera Files on December 24, 2020.

Without fail every December, siblings Imee and Bongbong remind us on social media that were it not for their father, the late Ferdinand Marcos Sr, Filipino workers would not be enjoying their 13th month pay.

Marcos loyalists thus go to the extent of stating that those who are against the Marcoses should refuse to receive that holiday season benefit.

The ease of making that claim leaves out the dire context of why and how Ferdinand Marcos implemented the 13th month pay. And it erases the effort of organized labor to secure such a benefit for themselves.

PRESIDENTIAL DECREE 851

Marcos, ruling by decree since he padlocked Congress when he assumed dictatorial powers in 1972, issued Presidential Decree (PD) 851 on December 16, 1975 “requiring all employers to pay their employees a 13th month pay.” Marcos’s misrepresentation started with that first line of the decree.

Marcos’s decree, and the propaganda that Imee and Bongbong wrapped around it, gives the impression that PD 851 started the practice of giving 13th month pay. It was not. Even before it was issued, some employers were already granting this benefit, that’s why Section 2 of Marcos’s decree states: “Employers already paying their employees a 13th-month pay or its equivalent are not covered by this Decree.” This exclusion states the obvious. However, while PD 851 did not apply to “all employers,” it also did not apply to all employees.

PD 851 was specifically for employees “receiving a basic salary of not more than P1, 000 a month, regardless of the nature of their employment.” They were to receive a 13th month pay “not later than Dec. 24 of every year.”

When the “Rules and Regulations Implementing Presidential Decree 851” came out a week after the edict was issued, Marcos kept whittling down those who will be covered by the law. Those who are not entitled to receive 13th month pay are the following: government employees, “household helpers and persons in the personal service of another in relation to such workers,” and “those who are paid on purely commission, boundary, or task basis, and those who are paid a fixed amount for performing a specific work” (meaning, most of the drivers in the public transport sector).

The implementing rules and regulations (IRR) of PD 851 provided an exemption for distressed employers, “such as (1) those which are currently incurring substantial losses or (2) in the case of non-profit institutions and organizations, where their income, whether from donations, contributions, grants and other earnings from any source, has consistently declined by more than 40% of their normal income for the last two years.” Their exemption must be approved by the Secretary of Labor.

The IRR also tried to correct a possible misconception by stating that nothing in PD 851 “shall prevent employers from giving the benefits provided in the Decree to their employees who are receiving more than P1,000 a month or benefits higher than those provided by the Decree.” It was an encouragement but not a binding mandate.

A month after issuing PD 851, Marcos was still tinkering with the law as he issued on Jan.16, 1976 the “Supplementary Rules and Regulations Implementing Presidential Decree 851.” The excuse given was “lack of sufficient time for the dissemination of the provisions of P.D. No. 851 and its Rules and the unavailability of adequate cash flow due to the long holiday season.”

What became obvious was that even among those select groups of employees that should have received 13th month pay, a significant number seemed to have not received it since the supplementary IRR ended up extending the due date for giving their 13th month pay for 1975 until March 31, 1976. The deadline, specifically for private schools, was even extended until June 30, 1976, a full half year since PD 851 had been in effect.

The supplementary IRR to PD 851 also excluded security guards or those employed by “Security and Watchman Agencies,” as well as contractors and subcontractors, at least for the year 1975. The supplementary IRR reasoned that their contracts for 1975 may not have a provision for a 13th month pay.

In the succeeding years, the implementation of PD 851 was challenged both by those it excluded and the employers that tried to exploit the ambiguity and omissions that inhere in the Marcos decree.

In the succeeding years, firms besides those enumerated in the implementation guidelines also applied for exemption to the Department of Labor from giving 13th month pay to their employees. Marcos issued a decree on May 1, 1978, Labor Day, to stop such exemptions, but expressly stated that the decree “did not apply to employers who are expressly exempted by law.”

A federation of government employees ran to the Supreme Court and contested their exclusion from receiving a 13th month pay but lost on Aug. 3, 1983 in Alliance of Government Workers et al. v The Honorable Minister of Labor and Employment et al. (G.R. No. L-60403).

As controversies arose regarding the implementation of PD 851, Marcos and his executive department became the arbiter on who may receive it and how. One particular voice was largely muted, if not missing from 1975 to 1981: labor unions independent of the regime, in particular those of the left.

Ordering employers to give 13th month pay should have been one of the carrots to the stick that Marcos lashed the organized labor with, with his decrees banning strikes, pickets, and lockouts.

WHOSE IDEA WAS THE 13TH MONTH PAY?

On May 1, 1974, Marcos issued PD 442, or the Philippine Labor Code. A team led by then Labor secretary Blas Ople was credited for developing the code. In his 1974 Labor Day address, Marcos said he had ordered Ople to “accelerate the codification of all labor laws” during the first Cabinet meeting after he placed the country under martial law.

In at least one interview after the fall of the Marcos regime, Ople described being “the author of the Labor Code of the Philippines” as among his greatest achievements. This issue of authorship, however, must be qualified by the fact that what Marcos (or Ople) did, as Ople himself wrote in the 1981-82 Fookien Times Philippines Yearbook, was to revise and consolidate “the country’s labor and social legislations.” They did not write it from scratch.

As quoted by Cherry-Lynn Ricafrente in a 1974 Philippine Law Journal article, Ople said that the Labor Code was “designed to be a dynamic and growing body of laws which will reflect continually the lessons of practical application and experience.”

Thus, through the martial law-era version of tripartism — involving the government and government-preferred representatives of employers’ groups and trade unions (only those with imprimatur of the Marcos regime), the last eventually forming what would become the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) — opportunities were given to selected members of the labor sector to suggest amendments to the Labor Code.

The Labor Code enshrined tripartism, stating that national, regional, or industrial tripartite conferences could be called by the secretary of labor “from time to time.” On Oct. 24-26, 1975, a National Tripartite Conference on the Labor Code was held at the Development Academy of the Philippines in Tagaytay City. The conference resulted in two of the three labor-related decrees issued by Marcos on Dec.16, 1975 — or at least that was how Marcos made it appear.

The first was PD 849. It amended PD 823, or the law banning strikes, picketing, and lockouts. PD 823 was issued on Nov. 5, 1975, in reaction to the infamous La Tondeña strike, which took place within the same time as the October 1975 tripartite conference. PD 849 allowed strikes and lockouts, but only under limited circumstances, and allowed the president to force compulsory arbitration when “in the public interest,” effectively putting a stop to an employee strike or an employer lockout.

The second edict, PD 850, was a lengthy piece of legislation amending dozens of sections of the Labor Code. The first “whereas” clause of the law adopted in toto what Ople said about the Code being “a dynamic and growing body of laws.”

Both PD 849 and 850, in the whereas clauses, acknowledged that those were products of tripartite discussions. The text of PD 851 did not. Yet a 1978 article in the Philippine Labor Review by Leonardo Q. Montemayor stated it plainly: “It is also from the discussions in this Conference that Presidential Decree No. 851 was considered.”

One of PD 851’s whereas clauses states that “the Christmas season is an opportune time for society to show its concern for the plight of the working masses so they may properly celebrate Christmas and New Year”— that is, giving another month’s salary is a social responsibility mandated by a benevolent dictator.

But given that PD 851 resulted from a tripartite conference, and that neither Ople nor Marcos seemed to have thought of legislating such a benefit prior to 1975, who can be credited with pushing for its enactment?

In recent years, the most well-known claimant to the title of “Father of 13th Month Pay” is Negrense lawyer/legislator Zoilo de la Cruz Jr. In 1975, he was president of the National Congress of Unions in the Sugar Industry in the Philippines, or NACUSIP. NACUSIP became a member of the government-recognized Philippine Labor Coordinating Center that eventually became TUCP in April 1975, ensuring that De la Cruz and the sugar workers represented by NACUSIP had a seat in tripartite discussions.

In an obituary written by Marchel Espina and published in The Freeman on Dec. 17, 2014, it stated that De la Cruz “conceptualized the 13th month pay, the Social Amelioration Program in the sugar industry and payment of cost of living allowance to workers in the private sector.”

In an article by Espina published in the Visayan Daily Star on Dec. 14, 2019, Zoilo’s son Ronaldo de la Cruz — who is now president of NACUSIP —, said that his father actually drafted the 13th month pay proposal, taking advantage of “his closeness to Marcos” and Marcos’s legislative powers. Such claims have also been repeatedly made in NACUSIP’s Facebook page.

Similar claims have also been made about another TUCP-affiliated labor leader who was a lawyer/legislator: Eulogio R. Lerum. According his profile in the Official Directory of the Constitutional Commission (1986), “Heading the labor delegation to the 1975 National Tripartite Conference, he sponsored the 13th month’s pay, 10 percent night work premium, 5 days annual paid incentive leave and payment by the employer of the 10 percent attorney’s fees in case of illegal withholding of wages. . . . Thru his efforts, the minimum wage was raised to P37.00 and the cost of living allowance to P17.00 daily.”

At the time of the tripartite conference, Lerum was known as a leader/president of the National Labor Union. He went on to become the representative of the labor sector in the Interim and Regular Batasang Pambansa and, with Ople, a member of the 1986 Constitutional Commission.

Marcos usually presented the 13th month pay decree without crediting anyone else for coming up with it. In Five Years of the New Society (1978), he claimed that minimum wages have in fact been increased by more than 100% [because] the actual minimum wage consists of the present basic minimum wages [and] additional compulsory compensations,” including the 13th month pay, which supposedly “represented an actual increase in basic pay of 8.3%.”

In a pamphlet titled “Gains of the Reformist Government (A Further Precis),” released in 1985, he said, “I have mandated reasonable wage increases to restore the purchasing power of our workers,” stating that wages had increased from “P6.00 a day” in 1965 to “P8.00 a day in 1972” to P57.08 per day for nonagricultural workers in 1984,” adding that such wages “have been boosted through a guaranteed 13th month pay and cost of living allowances.”

On Nov. 3, 1975 Marcos issued PD 823 stating that “it is the policy of the State to encourage trade unionism and free collective bargaining within the framework of compulsory and voluntary arbitration and therefore all forms of strikes, picketing and lockouts are hereby strictly prohibited.”

PD 849 went through the motion of somewhat loosening this draconian measure by creating stringent conditions when “any legitimate labor union may strike and any employer may lockout in establishments.” But the fact remained that Marcos wanted to buy industrial peace at any cost to shore up his so-called New Society.

The issuance of PDs 849, 850, and 851 was not only timed for the Christmas season so that Marcos made it appear that he was handing out “gifts” to the workers. It was also on Dec.16, 1975 that Marcos sworn in the officers of the just-founded Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) at Malacanang.

Marcos’s grant of 13th month pay to a select group of workers through PD 851 must thus be read in this context. While it helped alleviate the workers’ economic difficulties, it was also a propaganda tool for the New Society.

IMELDA MARCOS’ 13TH MONTH PAY AMID ECONOMIC CRISIS

By the 1980s, the economic value of Marcos’s supposed benevolence became negligible with the recurring rise in inflation and peso devaluation. In a chapter on Labor Standards and Economic Development (1996), Rene Ofreneo, a scholar on labor issues, noted that “from 1970 to 1979, the national income per worker in 1972 prices increased by about 23 % or roughly 2% a year, while real wages for the same period went down by 38% for skilled workers and 46% for unskilled workers.”

By 1983, the Marcos regime was in crisis mode triggered by the assassination of Ninoy Aquino. Ople, writing again for the Fookien Times Philippines Yearbook, conceded that “the past year was particularly difficult as worsening unemployment characterized the domestic scene. Mainly, as a result of contracting consumer markets in the developed economies, retrenchment measures adopted by local firms increased layoffs and labor turnover in all industry sector.”

As the workers kept on tightening their belt, the Marcoses were emptying the coffers of the republic to finance their frivolities.

Some of them, like Imelda, also enjoyed her share of the 13th month pay as head of various government agencies and government-owned and -controlled corporations. In 1985, for example, Imelda, as head of the Home Financing Corp., received a 13^th month pay of P33,097, based on records of the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG). Anything beyond Imelda’s legal income — including 13th month pay — has been juridically determined to be ill-gotten wealth.

Marcos managed to skirt his own prohibition against government employees receiving 13th month pay via annual presidential decrees that granted the release of the same benefit but only for that particular year. An effective way to shore up his image as the workers’ unrivalled patron.

When Cory Aquino succeeded Marcos to the presidency, she introduced some changes that broadened the scope of PD 851, specifically on who are entitled to a 13th month pay. During her 1986 Labor Day address, Cory Aquino announced that she would remove the pay ceiling for the 13th month pay for all rank-and-file employees. On Aug. 13, 1986, she issued Memorandum Order 28, which fulfilled her Labor Day promise. However, the amended PD 851 still did not grant a 13th month pay to government employees.

This was finally remedied by Republic Act 6686, enacted on Dec. 14, 1988 which states: ”All officials and employees of the National Government who have rendered at least four months of service from Jan. 1 to Oct. 31 of each year and who are employed in the government service as of Oct. 31 of the same year shall each receive a Christmas bonus equivalent to one month basic salary and additional cash gift of P1,000.

Originally published by Vera Files on November 1, 2021.

(This two-part article on the ongoing controversy surrounding the educational attainment of Ferdinand “Bongbong” R. Marcos, Jr. is based on pertinent documents and records that shine a light on the facts surrounding the issue. It traces events from 1974 when Bongbong was accepted to Oxford University to 1981 when he dropped out of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania to become vice governor of Ilocos Norte.)

Speaking at the 25th commencement exercises of the Philippine College of Commerce (now Polytechnic University of the Philippines) on April 1, 1978,the dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos mentioned that his only son and namesake Ferdinand “Bongbong” R. Marcos, Jr. was “still a senior at Oxford.”

“He is graduating this June,” the father said. “He is so busy he could not stay here, he came here and stayed only two days and said: ‘I better go back to Oxford, Father, at ngayon ay naghahanda kami sa final examinations ng June’.”

This was a lie.

The exams that Bongbong was preparing for were not for a college degree in which he had a senior standing. It was for a “Special Diploma in Social Studies.” This, his father knew by late 1976.

Documents left behind in Malacañang when the Marcos patriarch was toppled and the whole family fled the country in February 1986 tell the story of what Bongbong, who is running for president in the 2022 elections, was able to achieve in his university studies—or what amounted to it—and the Marcoses’ persistent efforts to lie about it.

Bongbong was accepted into Oxford University in October 1975 for a Bachelor of Arts degree in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE), a three-year course. He had passed Oxford and Cambridge’s Schools Examination for summer of 1974 with the following grades in three subjects at advanced level: English literature, C; mathematics, C; physics, C; and the general paper, E. The highest grade in this examination was A.

On November 5, 1974, then Philippine Ambassador to the United Kingdom, Jaime Zobel de Ayala, sent a cable to Marcos. He reported that based on his telephone conversation with Dr. Ernest Ronald Oxburgh, Oxford’s tutor of admissions, “the faculty who interviewed Ferdinand were quite impressed by his personality although they felt that he was a little shy.”

During that interview, Ayala wrote that Bongbong “expressed desire to get degrees in either PPE… or engineering and economics,” and that Oxford was ready to accept the young Marcos for a degree in PPE in October 1975, but not in engineering and economics.

“They do not think that he is ready to embark in such a strong course without getting further instruction in pure and applied mathematics before entering Oxford,” the ambassador reported.

Marcos, in a November 25, 1974 letter to Oxburgh, expressed his gratitude to Oxford for accepting Bongbong into its PPE program, calling it the start of a “momentous experience of our young man.”

One year and eight months later, that momentous experience that Marcos had hoped for his son was shattered by Bongbong’s dismal academic performance.

Photo 2 General Certificate… by VERA Files

Photo 3 1974 11 05 Zobel to… by VERA Files

Photo 4,1974 11 25 PFM to O… by VERA Files

In a confidential cable on July 27, 1976, Ambassador Pablo A. Araque, then chargé d’affaires in London, informed Marcos that “Bongbong passed in only one of three subjects he took in the preliminary examination. He passed philosophy but failed in economics and politics.” The diplomat explained that under the Oxford system, “a student who fails whole or part of preliminary examination has opportunity of re-sitting it in September.”

Bongbong had to retake the two exams on September 30, 1976. Tutors were hired to help him prepare.

But Araque continued to be the bearer of bad news. In another confidential cable to Marcos on October 9, 1976, he reported that Dr. John Norman Davidson Kelly, principal of Oxford’s St. Edmund Hall, had informed him that Bongbong “passed in economics but failed in politics. Dr. Kelly expressed deep disappointment at the way things have worked out despite all the efforts and regrets that the firm rule of the college that an undergraduate who fails to clear his preliminary examination at the end of the first year must go out of residence for good now applies.”

Still, the principal threw them a life line.

“Dr. Kelly ended his letter to me quote [‘] if Ferdinand Jr. or you can think of any special circumstances which would warrant the college departing from its normal rule I should be grateful if you would advise me of these as quickly as possible[’] unquote,” Araque noted.

In an October 11, 1976 urgent and confidential cable addressed to Marcos and his wife, Imelda, the embassy official reported on the appeal he and Capt. Artemio Tadiar, Armed Forces attaché to London, made in person to Kelly on behalf of Bongbong, citing the “special mitigating circumstances” that might convince Oxford to relax its rule.

Araque crafted these mitigating circumstances as “(1) Bong’s asthma complicated by flu weeks before his first examination and a similar ailment before the second, exacerbated by the long and exhausting trip back to London from Manila and the abrupt change in temperature [;] and (2) the adverse psychological effects on him after his visit with you (Marcos) to the devastated areas in Mindanao after the earthquake and tidal wave which killed 8000 people and rendered many thousands more homeless.”

Kelly said that he would present the appeal to the 35-member college committee, but cautioned Araque “against over-optimism as favorable decisions in cases similar” to those of Bongbong were ‘very rare’.”

The diplomat told Marcos that according to Kelly, “the rule governing an undergraduate who fails to pass his preliminary examination as a whole after two attempts is not only a college rule but Oxford University rule. In the event that Bong’s case is reconsidered favorably, and Dr. Kelly emphasized that this can only be known after the committee meets, Bong will have to wait until next June [1977] to re-sit his examination in politics. In the meantime, Dr. Kelly is afraid there is nothing for Bong to do in Oxford.”

The committee should have decided the case by the end of October 1976. Whatever the final verdict of the committee, it was clear by then that Bongbong had failed to finish his bachelor’s degree in PPE.

Photo 5 1976 07 27 Araque t… by VERA Files

Photo 6 1976 10 09 Araque t… by VERA Files

Photo 7 1976 10 11 Araque t… by VERA Files

Photo 8 1978 07 24 Kelly to… by VERA Files

But the young Marcos remained in Oxford until at least July 1978, no longer to pursue a college degree but a special diploma in social studies. Instituted in 1968, this special diploma was “an award to be taken mainly by non-graduates,” according to Norman Chester in Economics, Politics and Social Studies in Oxford, 1900-85,

Under Oxford’s Examination Decrees and Regulations for academic year 1974-75, even non-members of the university “may be admitted as students for the diploma under such conditions as the Board of the Faculty of Social Studies shall prescribe, provided always that, before admission to a course of study approved by the board, candidates, if not members of the University, shall have satisfied the board that they have received a good general education and are well qualified to enter the proposed course of study.” Now discontinued, the special diploma in social studies was one of the qualifications that could be received from Oxford up to the mid-1990s although by then clearly listed under “other qualifications (non-graduate).”

On July 24, 1978, Kelly informed Tadiar of the results of the examinations that Bongbong took for the special diploma. In all five examination papers—one each for political institutions, economic principles, general sociology, economic development, and industrial sociology— Marcos’ son had “obtained a reasonable Class II level.”

“Altogether, his performance in the examination was quite a creditable one, especially having regard to the various distractions to which a young man in his position is inevitably exposed. I think he can go back to his own country with the confidence that, from the academic point of view, his time at Oxford was useful,” Kelly wrote in his letter to Tadiar.

A special diploma, as the Oxford University has made categorically clear recently, “was not a full graduate diploma.” Bongbong has no college degree.