Meet the REAL Marcos

Alan Robles, a multi-awarded journalist, has been posting a series of exposés on the Marcoses in his website hotmanila.ph over the last 11 years.

I’d like to share them with you all, especially with the present generation.

Alan intentionally wrote in satire to celebrate our new-found freedoms. You see, during Martial Law, laughing at the Marcoses could land you in jail. Jokes against Marcos and his family were considered crimes against national security.

Despite this, Alan was among the few Martial Law journalists who dared to poke fun at the dictatorship in his writings for National Midweek, Philippine News and Features and The Manila Times.

His dangerous efforts were rewarded. On February 25, 1986 shortly after the Marcoses fled Malacañang Palace,  he and a handful of reporters and photographers  scrambled over the Palace iron gates and witnessed it being captured by the Filipino people.

His articles below continue the long historical tradition in the Philippines for political satire. Enjoy!

Ferdinand Marcos: Great guy!

Five years ago, in one survey conducted in the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos was rated the best president since Satan. Just kidding. Actually he was the highest ranked in a list which included Corazon Aquino, Fidel Ramos, Joseph Estrada and Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. Click on this link to read more –

5 PERNICIOUS MARCOS MYTHS

MYTH 1. UNDER MARCOS THE COUNTRY WAS PROSPEROUS

A few people were prosperous. People like Herminio Disini, Danding Cojuangco, Imelda Marcos. Ferdinand Marcos, junior — Bongbong — got his own island, Calauit — as a hunting preserve. He demanded, and was handed, millions of pesos from a private company, Philcomsat. “What could we do,” a company officer said later, “he was the president’s son.” Imelda turned the Philippine National Bank into her private piggy bank and Philippine Airlines into her personal air service. She bought condos in New York, ordered posh department stores to close their doors so she could shop inside in peace, handed out hundred dollar tips to Americans. Where’d all this money come from? Click on this link to read more –

Resurrecting Marcos

Twenty-four years ago the Marcoses were chased out of the country. Now, Ferdinand junior is running for the Senate, Imelda for Congress and her daughter Imee for governor. Marcos senior, who died in 1989, is refrigerating above ground — his family’s awaiting the most opportune moment to plop his semigelatinous corpse in the National Heroes’ Cemetery. Click on this link to read more –

What Martial Law was like

In 1972 Ferdinand Marcos declared Martial Law with Proclamation 1081. He did it, he said, to save the Republic and to create what he called a “New Society.” A whole generation of Filipinos now exists which only has the faintest recollection — if at all — of the Marcos dictatorship. Kids, this is what you missed. Perhaps it’s what you should pass on when you have kids of your own.

The lies. The biggest lie — the mother lie — was that Martial Law was imposed for the good of the people. Click on this link to read more –

 

How well do you know EDSA 1986?

Click on this link to take the quiz.

Swindling history

Poor Imelda Marcos is hurting. For years, people have called Ferdinand, her late husband, a crook, a despot and worse, and it has been an agony for her.

Well, enough of the boo-hoo. Ten days ago, the 74-year old widow filed a libel complaint against a government official who recently called her dead ex a dictator and a thief. She also filed charges against the reporter who wrote up the remarks and two editors of the newspaper that printed them. She said the insults “generated unjust contempt for my husband and my family, and clearly blackened the memory of my late husband”. Click on this link to read more –

Booty and the Beast

When Marcos fled the Philippines in 1986, he tried to bring as much of it with him as he could

Frequent travelers can pick up a few tips from the Marcoses: given very short notice of a sudden departure, they were able to pack and bring along 300 crates of loot to Hawaii. Of course, not every frequent traveler gets to be ferried on Air Force cargo planes courtesy of the US government. Click on this link to read more –

The Man of Steal:

Great Marcos moments

When the Marcos family fled to Hawaii in 1986, investigators that year finally got a chance to grill the slippery ex-dictator about his wealth. This time the Marcoses had no military, no state apparatus to intimidate, arrest or harm their questioners. This time Ferdinand couldn’t hide behind the office of the president to browbeat, mock, evade or laugh off accusers and questioners. He couldn’t use his dictatorial powers to put himself above the law as he had done in the Philippines.

What a difference a lack of brutal power makes. Philippine government lawyers, supported by the US government, cornered Ferdinand and Imelda in their Hawaii hideaway and spent a contentious 12 hours taking videotaped testimony. Click on this link to read more –

Dear Egypt

Dear Egyptians (and Tunisians and possibly Libyans and whichever other nationalities manage to free themselves this year)

Congratulations, you’ve seized your country back from the iron grip of dictatorial oppression. It was a hard struggle, it took years before you could nerve yourself up for a massive showdown, but in the end you poured out into the streets, faced down the strongman and sent him slinking away, tail between his legs. Click on this link to read more –

Actually, your job has just begun. Click on this link why –

It’s a great time to be a Marcos

Fourteen years ago the Marcos family fled into the night, escaping an outraged citizenry that had surrounded their palace and was preparing to tear them to bits.

For millions of Filipinos it looked like a happy ending, the kind found in fairy tales and movies.

But now the fairy tale’s evaporated. The movie has a horror sequel. The Marcoses, once among the most hated people on this planet, are back in the Philippines: unrepentant, triumphant, rich and sneeringly in power. Click on this link to read the rest –