Category: Lies

Originally published by Vera Files on February 28, 2021

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

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

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

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

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

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

Source: ACE Electoral Knowledge Network

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Originally published by Vera Files on October 18, 2023

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

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

Rice price

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

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

Relocated birthplace

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

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

“Historic Visit”

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

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

“Founding Figure”

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

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

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

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

Youth Act author

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(Dis)information Center

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

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

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

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

Originally published by Vera Files on June 29, 2022.

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

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

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

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

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

THE FERDINAND E. MARCOS FOUNDATION

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

FERDINAND MARCOS’S LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

FALSE PROMISES AND COMPROMISES

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

There is no known evidence to support this.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

THE BASIS OF LOYALIST LOYALTY?

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

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

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

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

But what if this does not happen?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Originally published by Vera Files on May 7, 2022.

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

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

This was his full reply:

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

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

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

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

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

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

THE SCAM BEGINS

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

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

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

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

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

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

Both died at the committee level.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ENTER THE MARCOSES

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

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

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

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

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

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

HYDROSPHERE RESOURCES FOR MOTHERING, INC. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

WHAT’S IN IT FOR THE MARCOSES

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

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

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

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

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

It is the ultimate mother-and-son scam.