The Rotten Apple Does Not Fall Far from the Rotten Tree

THE ROTTEN APPLE DOES NOT FALL FAR FROM THE ROTTEN TREE

ANOTHER ATTEMPT TO DISTORT PHILIPPINE HISTORY

Philippine Daily Inquirer

04:02 AM January 14, 2020

The Marcoses were able to bury Ferdinand Marcos in the Libingan ng mga Bayani — in collusion with President Duterte — to perpetrate the lie, in a clear distortion of history, that Marcos the plunderer and human rights violator is a hero. Now the son of the dictator wants to make the lie complete with his push to revise our history books.

We should oppose this sinister move of the Marcoses, pursuant to our collective responsibility to pass to the next generations what really happened during the dark days of the Marcos dictatorship.

Failure to do so may again allow tyranny to rule this sad land of ours. We are now, in fact, experiencing a gradual descent into another tyranny, sadly because many of us are oblivious of our past and have really not learned the sad lessons of our history.

That Marcos was indeed a dictator who robbed our people of their basic rights and freedoms, who violated their human rights wholesale and who plundered the nation’s wealth is already beyond dispute as acknowledged by the Supreme Court itself in a number of decisions.

Speaking of Marcos, for instance, who on his deathbed had signified his wish to return to the Philippines, the Court declared:

“This case is unique. It should not create a precedent, for the case of a dictator forced out of office and into exile after causing 20 years of political, economic and social havoc in the country and who within the short space of three years seeks to return, is in a class by itself… We cannot also lose sight of the fact that the country is only now beginning to recover from the hardships brought about by the plunder of the economy attributed to the Marcoses and their close associates and relatives, many of whom are still here in the Philippines in a position to destabilize the country, while the Government has barely scratched the surface, so to speak, in its efforts to recover the enormous wealth stashed away by the Marcoses in foreign jurisdictions.

“Then, we cannot ignore the continually increasing burden imposed on the economy by the excessive foreign borrowing during the Marcos regime, which stifles and stagnates development and is one of the root causes of widespread poverty and all its attendant ills. The resulting precarious state of our economy is of common knowledge and is easily within the ambit of judicial notice.” (Marcos v. Manglapus, GR No. 88211 Sept. 15, 1989).

SEVERO BRILLANTES

brillanteslaw@gmail.com

FAMILY TRADITION OF UNTRUTH

Philippine Daily Inquirer / 05:08 AM January 17, 2020

That the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree was once more starkly demonstrated last week by the dictator’s son and namesake Ferdinand Marcos Jr. This election also-ran who still can’t get over the fact that he lost the vice presidency (and who continues to be indulged by the Presidential Electoral Tribunal) made bold claims startling for their fidelity to dissembling and fraud: That, contrary to accusations, it was his family that was the “victim” of historical revisionism because the charges remain unproven; that young Filipinos were being fed lies about his family; that textbooks should thus be cleaned of these supposed falsehoods. Marcos Jr. has tried yet again to climb out of the swamp of irrelevance, this time aided and abetted by some character who called him “the real vice president.” It is important that his latest attempt to burnish the notorious family brand be swatted down forthwith, even if the temptation is great that it just be ignored as one would the buzzing of a fly. Much damage is, and has been, done by a benign indifference. Pelf being the great enabler, the family’s camp has made an industry out of falsely projecting Ferdinand Marcos’ dictatorship as the Philippines’ “golden age,” and there’s a list of online sites that churn out such fabrications and more. Everyone with a stake in the democratic project should pull together to disabuse other Filipinos of this family’s delusions of grandeur, and to counter with fact its long-running engagement with fraud.

Marcos Jr. claimed that stuff had been written in children’s textbooks about his family’s supposed thievery and other wrongdoing but that court proceedings showed these up as untrue: “Nilagay nila sa libro, sa textbook ng mga bata, na ganito, na ang mga Marcos ganito ang ninakaw, ganito ang ginawa. Ngayon lumalabas sa korte, hindi totoo lahat nang sinabi ninyo dahil hindi niyo naipakita.”

He said there was “no evidence” of his family’s supposed crimes and that the allegations were “political propaganda.” And he added, in a sly imitation of offended virtue: “Essentially, you are teaching children lies.”

Marcos Jr. upholds an apparent family tradition of untruth, starting from the paterfamilias’ claim of a bemedalled wartime record as a soldier (described by the National Historical Commission of the Philippines as “fraught with myths, factual inconsistencies and lies,” and debunked by the freedom fighter Bonifacio Gillego and certain US Army officials), and continuing in his sister the senator’s claim of academic achievements here and abroad (denied by the University of the Philippines and Princeton University).

In declaring “no evidence” to back accusations of his family’s plunder, he behaves as if all other Filipinos have been rendered cretins by impoverishment and have forgotten court records, including in the Supreme Court, stating that the Marcos wealth was ill-gotten.

At the Sandiganbayan, Associate Justice Maryann Corpus Mañalac, while concurring in the dismissal last year of a P200-billion forfeiture case against Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos and their cronies, said in a separate opinion: “The fact that the Marcoses have ill-gotten wealth or illegally acquired properties has already been judicially established.”

Mañalac said the Marcoses had failed to “overcome the finding of prima facie presumption” of their ill-gotten wealth, part of which, she noted, had been returned to the Philippine government through compromise agreements. “Indeed,” she said in reference to offshore accounts set up by Ferdinand Marcos, “if all these financial transactions were lawful and legitimate, one wonders why the former president had to use dummies and trustees in the acquisition of assets and properties here and overseas.”

“No evidence”? Republic Act No. 10368, passed when Marcos Jr. was a senator, provides for P10 billion in reparation for victims of human rights violations during the dictatorship and requires the creation of a commission to ensure the teaching of “martial law atrocities” and the lives of the victims.

Even in their panicked flight to Hawaii on that fateful night in February 1986, when a furious people were close to coming through the Palace gates, the Marcoses could not tear themselves away with just the clothes on their backs. According to Nick Davies writing in The Guardian, an official US Customs record of the family’s possessions in the two C-141 planes that transported them listed: 23 wooden crates; 12 suitcases and bags and various boxes of clothes; 413 pieces of jewelry including 70 pairs of jewel-studded cufflinks; an ivory statue of the Santo Niño with a silver mantle and a diamond necklace; 24 gold bricks inscribed with the words “To my husband on our 24th anniversary”; and more than P27 million in freshly printed notes.

And Imelda Marcos, convicted of seven counts of graft in November 2018, was partying on the night of the promulgation of the Sandiganbayan’s decision.

Bongbong is right, our textbooks need fixing. They say too little about the evil the Marcoses wrought. I had to educate my children myself about that else they’d never have learned it at school.

nonoy espina, @EspinaNonoy

Philippine Daily Inquirer (January 13, 2020)

POLITICIANS OBSESSED WITH PUBLIC OFFICE

Bongbong Marcos cuts a sorry figure with his obsession with high office. Perhaps he could first make a goodwill gesture by returning those infamous millions to the public coffers. David Broder’s view on certain politicians is blunt: “Anybody that wants the presidency so much that he’ll spend two years organizing and campaigning for it is not to be trusted with the office.” Washington Post, 7/18/73)

VIRGINIA CALPOTURA, RSCJ, strvirginia@yahoo.com.ph

Philippine Daily Inquirer (January 22, 2020)

GHOSTS OF CCP SHOULD HAUNT MARCOSES, FILIPINOS

Philippine Daily Inquirer

04:01 AM January 21, 2020

There are many bad things going on in this country, but nothing more nauseating than the recent award given to Imelda Marcos by the Cultural Center of the Philippines. The media photos at the grand dinner for the Marcos family, beaming along with CCP chief Margie Moran, were totally disgusting, particularly at this time when Taal Volcano victims need assistance.

One could dream that the CCP had instead shown at that event the recent foreign documentary “The Kingmaker.” But that, of course, would not have happened, given the servility displayed by Filipino officials with short memories. But thankfully, the film is now scheduled to be shown in Manila on Jan. 29. I saw it some months ago in the United States and wished it could be shown throughout our country to remind people of the dark era when the Marcoses were in power.

There is a superb account of the building and collapse of the Manila Film Center by Tats Manahan in the November 2015 issue of Rogue magazine. It chronicles how Imelda dreamed of putting up, next to the CCP, a Parthenon-like structure to be a “filmmakers’ wonderland.” With the grand opening scheduled for January 1982, 4,000 workers in seven shifts were tasked with finishing the construction on time.

In November 1981, the scaffolding on one floor collapsed, burying hundreds of men in the rubble. Rescue efforts were slow. There is only one extant photo taken by a TV network, showing a man being pulled out of the rubble — an engineer ironically named Benigno Aquino, who died in the hospital.

Since martial law was in place, Imelda ordered a news blackout to keep the public from learning about the incident. Rescue efforts were stopped so the rebuilding could continue, but it was known that 169 men were unaccounted for and left buried in the rubble. The grand opening was held on time, with foreign film celebrities like George Hamilton, Brooke Shields and Jeremy Irons being flown in for free by Philippine Airlines.In 1990, an earthquake and a fire made the Film Center unstable, but after some restoration work, Imelda allowed soft porn to be shown to the public to raise revenue. Manahan recounts exorcism rites being held in the film center, with Imee Marcos supervising. To this day it’s believed the ghosts of the buried men hover over the doomed building, a testament to Imelda’s entombed dreams.

There were a few muted cries at the time over the millions being spent on what the late senator Benigno Aquino Jr. had called Imelda’s “edifice complex.” Today, Imelda is being feted for her supposed contribution to the arts. One really has to wonder if and when Filipinos will ever gain some self-respect.

CELESTE T. CRUZ
celestetcruz@gmail.com

CCP’S LAVISH DINNER FOR IMELDA IN BAD TASTE

Philippine Daily Inquirer / 05:01 AM January 22, 2020

The lavish dinner hosted by the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) for its founding chair Imelda Marcos as part of its 50th-anniversary celebration was in bad taste. Imelda was “founding chair” because she was the wife of then President Ferdinand Marcos. Marcos declared martial law in 1972 and his regime was marked by human rights abuses and the amassing of ill-gotten wealth by his family and cronies.

The CCP was built by the people’s money. The Philippines’ foreign debt rose from $360 million in 1962 to $26.2 billion by the end of 1985 (the Marcos regime spanned the years 1965-1986). Surely a percentage of that went to the building of the CCP and the other buildings now standing at the complex. Thus, the CCP is owned by the Filipino people, and the people are not indebted to anyone, much more to a convicted grafter like Imelda Marcos.

…The comment of CCP vice president and artistic director Raul Sunico is another problem, as this could be the rationale shared by the other organizers. Sunico was quoted as saying “We want to give this tribute irrespective of political color. Let art and politics be separate” (News, 1/18/2020). Sunico’s statement is exactly the opposite of facts. Art and politics are interrelated. For example, Sunico pursued his piano career through the patronage of Imelda Marcos. Moreover, this “tribute” interconnects with the “political color” of the list of hosts from the CCP and perhaps the other invitees. Artists should be wary of cultural institutions and officials peddling “artistic excellence.” True beauty is arts and culture that serve the needs of the people and the aspirations of the nation.

Julie L. Po, Linangan ng Kulturang Pilipino, jlp704@yahoo.com

DISTASTEFUL TRIBUTE

Philippine Daily Inquirer / 05:09 AM January 23, 2020

In outraged social media posts, the event was described as “shameless,” “unacceptable,” “tacky,” “offensive,” “a well-planned PR stunt” that “was glorifying corruption.”

At the very least, the fancy dinner that the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) hosted last week for former first lady and graft convict Imelda Marcos was as sensitive and appropriate as fiddling while Taal burns.

…The appreciation dinner was part of the CCP’s 50th anniversary celebration, CCP officials explained, and was meant “to recognize (Imelda’s) contribution as founding chair of the institution.”

…Could the lavish event, in fact, be another attempt to socially rehabilitate the Marcoses, reminding the masses of those glorious days when Madame fancied herself a patroness of the arts and engineered to bring world-class artists to Manila? “As one of the first performing arts centers in the region, the CCP has sponsored talented Filipinos who have gained worldwide recognition, brought international artists to the Philippines and in general, helped revitalize and raise awareness of Philippine arts and culture,” the CCP statement read. Absent in that tribute, of course, are memories of how, as one columnist recalls, “patronage was exercised…with all the wild abandon and disregard for expense of renaissance tyrants.” But having enjoyed such patronage, who can blame some lackeys for feeling grateful and nostalgic for those halcyon days, and seek to bring them back if only for a night?

The dinner also comes barely a week after Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, Jr., feeling triumphant following another favorable court decision on yet another Marcos hidden wealth case, felt bold enough to urge education officials to set history aright. Textbooks are teaching “lies” about his family, whined the losing 2016 vice presidential candidate.

And so, despite the Sandiganbayan’s November 2018 verdict finding Imelda “guilty beyond reasonable doubt” of 7 counts of graft, when by now the former first lady should be shuffling about in orange prison garb, there she was instead at the CCP’s cavernous lobby, once again dressed to the nines and ever-giddy to party, surrounded by her beaming brood and her preferred perfumed crowd even as the rest of the country was scrambling to rush to the aid of tens of thousands of Filipinos suddenly made bereft by calamity.To be fair, the CCP would also be showing, as part of its 50th-anniversary activities, the award-winning documentary “The Kingmaker” by Lauren Greenfield, in what appears to be an attempt to balance this distasteful tribute with a recounting of the Marcos excesses. The more cynical would see this, however, as too small a concession, and plain damage control.

Bongbong Marcos Is a Liar:

https://oddsandendsgonzalinhodacosta.blogspot.com/2018/09/placeholder-b.html

Sins of the Father:

https://poetryofgonzalinhodacosta.blogspot.com/2016/11/sins-of-father_30.html

Bayani:

https://poetryofgonzalinhodacosta.blogspot.com/2019/11/bayani.html

Jail the Marcoses:

https://oddsandendsgonzalinhodacosta.blogspot.com/2018/09/placeholder-c.html

Imee Marcos—A Murderer and a Thief:

https://oddsandendsgonzalinhodacosta.blogspot.com/2018/09/placeholder.html

Advancing Duterte’s Fascist Agenda in the Philippines:

https://oddsandendsgonzalinhodacosta.blogspot.com/2018/12/dutertes-fascist-agenda-in-philippines.html