Primitivo Mijares: The Fake News Troll Turned Whistleblower
How a Former Marcos Propagandist Became a Martial Law Martyr
Ah, fake news trolls. Society’s biggest pet peeve, purveyor of lies, conduit of falsehoods, the biggest disgrace to press freedom. From then until now, they’ve been the tools of the corrupt state’s propaganda machinery, ranging from the print media to social media. They do not care about what is true, only about what makes the ruling class keep their power. The scary part is that these trolls have played an enormous role on the last two Philippine presidential elections, and from there, they will never stop so long as they benefit from it. Free press is dying once more, and partisan state media are making a comeback.
The rise of Duterte and the subsequent return of the Marcoses in Malacañang has certainly made the status of honest journalism and free speech stand on a shaky ground. But aside from journalists, it seems that historians and other intellectuals are also discredited and under the threat of being tagged as the enemies of the state, as a part of the trolls’ attempt to sanitize the legacy of the brutal Marcos regime. The state manipulation of media is surely not a recent phenomenon, as demonstrated during the dictatorship of Marcos the Elder. His greatest news troll, Primitivo Mijares, was mostly responsible. If so, then how come that his only book, became the most quintessential anti-Marcos book ever printed?
Meet Tibo
Born on November 17, 1931 in Santo Tomas, Batangas, Primitivo Mijares, or “Tibo” to his family and close associates, grew up having a rather tragic childhood. He was orphaned at the age of 12 and witnessed his parents slayed with the bayonets of Japanese kempeitai forces during the Second World War. After the war, he was separated from his sisters, who then moved to Borneo. He was practically alone. But that didn’t stop him from being a bright student in his school. Tibo graduated valedictorian in a high school in Baguio, where he was also the editor-in-chief of their school paper. He then graduated college and obtained a law degree in Lyceum of the Philippines University and passed the bar in 1960. It was in that school where he met his future wife Priscilla Castillo which became a judge. Tibo’s journalistic career started when he became an editor for Baguio Midland Courier in 1950. A year later, he worked under the now-defunct newspaper Manila Chronicle owned by the Lopez patriarch Eugenio Sr.
Working with Marcos
But what catapulted him into career success was when he became close to then-Senate President Ferdinand Marcos, whom he was assigned to interview for Manila Chronicle. That relationship continued well until Marcos was elected president in 1965. Tibo wasn’t just your ordinary reporter. He’s one of the very few people that has unlimited access to the president’s office, without undergoing into the hassle of being constantly inspected by the presidential security guards. Whatever shit is going on inside Malacañang, he’s one of the first people that have the advance knowledge of it. So much so that he kept bragging about it in his book The Conjugal Dictatorship.
I was generally accepted as an ex-officio member of the Marcos cabinet, having access to all cabinet meetings and even closed-door military briefings. While functioning as chief propagandist for Marcos, I also served as a ‘Devil’s advocate’…
Of all the media man, Mijares was the only one that Marcos can trust enough to tell him all of his honest thoughts, aspirations, opinions, and even deepest darkest secrets. Tibo essentially became the dictator’s human diary, sharing not only his personal life, but also his future plans as a president. As the editor of the Marcos-owned Philippine Daily Express, almost not a single one of Tibo’s articles composed of entirely his opinions, but Marcos’. He served as the tyrant’s megaphone to spread political propaganda to the Filipino people. If he is alive today, I’m sure as hell that he would be a quintessential Marcos apologist vlogger on the internet, constantly bombarding the social media on just how great Apo Lakay was.
The truth was there were hardly any columns that I had written which were not orchestrated by Marcos. Most of the pieces I had written as news stories or columns, about how excellent the thoughts, acts, and deeds of Marcos were, were actually dictated by Marcos. I was therefore not a free agent when I wrote the ‘thoughts of Marcos’ in my columns in the Daily Express.
Mijares’ main job was to convince the people how the declaration of martial law though Proclamation 1081 was totally justified because of the communist threat. He earnestly believed that the proclamation was only an “emergency measure” and Marcos had a legitimately good intentions for doing so. This was despite witnessing all of the regime’s bullshit happening right before Tibo’s eyes, from staged bombings, unjust arrests, tortures, killings, military abuses, to corruption. He was the first fake news troll, with the task of spreading misinformation and disinformation to the public in the name of the regime.
While inside Marcos’ presidential office on September 22, 1972, one day before his televised announcement of martial law declaration, Mijares gave details on how the president and his Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile planned the subsequent “ambush” of the latter later evening that day. He was already told in advance that this fake Enrile ambush will be Marcos’ “breaking point” that would finally make him implement PD 1081. That tactic was almost the same that Hitler used in 1933, where the Nazis staged the bombing of the German parliament (Reichstag), blame it to the Marxist-Leninists, declare martial law over Germany, and establish the Nazi regime. Of course after the EDSA revolution, Enrile confirmed that his ambush was staged, but being a lying turncoat that he had always been, he then asserted that it was real on his 2012 memoir. If the Enrile ambush was real, then why was Tibo ordered to write a press release about it days before it even happened?
Marcos pressed a button in his intercom, and when an aide responded to say, “Yes, sir,” he commanded, “Get me Secretary Enrile.”….Marcos ordered Enrile in the following manner, “Secretary Enrile? Where are you? You have to do it now…Ya, ya, the one we discussed this noon. We cannot postpone it any longer. Another day of delay may be too late.” Continuing his orders obviously after being interrupted with some remarks by Enrile, Marcos went on, “Make it look good. Kailangan siguro ay may masaktan o kung mayroon mapatay ay mas mabuti…O, hala sigue, Johnny and be sure the story catches the ‘Big News’ and ‘Newswatch’…and call me as soon as it is over.”
Aside from being the editor-in-chief and columnist of the Daily Express, Tibo was also the president of the National Press Club of the Philippines during the Martial Law, and later on the chairman of the Media Advisory Council through Presidential Decree №191, where his job was to maintain press censorship. He was, in his own words, “the sole conduit between the military government and the practicing media.” Any media company that didn’t have a permit with his signature wasn’t allowed to operate. All newspapers, broadcasting media, and radio stations were on the palm of his hand. Despite not being an actual member of the cabinet, he yielded more power than the actual Information Secretary Francisco Tatad, who was supposed to be in charge of state propaganda. That’s how powerful Tibo was for merely sucking off to the Marcos regime.
Being the chief propagandist and confidant of the president, he benefited greatly from all of his work. His children were even sometimes teasing him for being a Marcos lapdog. His family had a peaceful and prosperous life, he had all of the money that he can spend lavishly, he could travel all around the world with various world leaders. He had a good thing going. He was living the dream, and had everything to lose. So then what went wrong? What made Tibo dare to bite the hand that feeds him and his family?
Breaking Away from the Regime
As years passed after the declaration of PD 1081, Mijares slowly got sick of everything that the Marcos regime has committed, especially when the Marcos cronies grabbed all of the businesses and corporations that they shut down to enrich themselves. He was being eaten by his conscience. He eventually doubted his loyalty to his boss, and questioned his motives that he once believed to be justifiable. It became more obvious to Tibo that Marcos implemented martial law not to protect the country from a communist uprising but to indefinitely perpetuate himself into power. His wife, Judge Priscilla, once said that he told her that he was becoming disgusted on what the Marcos government had become. Of course, he was smart enough to know that he cannot disassociate himself from the regime while in the Philippines, lest he will suffer the fate of the torture victims that he saw from military reports.
So what he did was he asked Marcos to send him to the United States for a diplomatic trip on October 23, 1974, during the time when leaving the country was an almost impossible feat, especially for dissidents. Away from the regime, Tibo then had the courage to denounce his boss and joined the overseas anti-Marcos resistance. By February 5, 1975, he issued a formal statement of defection from the Marcos government and started to settle in San Francisco, California. He wasn’t contented. He even testified to the US Congress through House International Relations Subcommittee under the Democrat representative of Minnesota Donald M. Fraser, exposing all of the corruption, bribery, and human rights violations committed by the Marcos regime. He said in his opening statement to the Fraser Committee:
If I now take a strong position against the martial regime of Mr. Marcos, I do so with the sense of outrage of one who has been so thoroughly betrayed. I was hoodwinked into supporting the imposition of martial law. It should not take any longer for the armed forces generals and other influential civil officials still supporting Mr. Marcos to realize that they, too, are being hoodwinked. The truth will soon come out, and history will vindicate me, that the reasons used by President Marcos in imposing martial law were deliberately manufactured by Mr. Marcos himself in a manner that makes Hitler a piker in his burning of the Reichstag.
That’s not even the biggest plot twist of this story.
It was June 16, 1975, the night before he testified to the Congress, someone from the Philippines made an international call to Mijares. It was the Presidential Assistant Guillermo “Gimo” de Vega, telling him that Marcos wants to talk to him. The despot tried to discourage Tibo to testify as he claims that it will not help the “new society”. Gimo then offered Tibo $50,000 to shut the fuck up, which will be given to him and Ambassador Trinidad Alconcel in San Francisco through a check the next day. Another 50 grand will then be given to Tibo if he leaves the United States and go to Australia. Mijares declined, and still wanted to go to the Congress as planned, and there was even a subtle death threat towards him. That phone call was submitted as further evidence demonstrating how far can Marcos go to preserve his tyranny, to even go so far as to commit obstruction of justice in a foreign soil despite being a world leader. This is how their phone conversation went down:
De Vega: Tibo, gusto kang makausap ni Sir.
Marcos: Tibo, pwede bang huwag ka nang sumipot sa Komiteng ‘yan? Alam mo, marami na tayong problema dito. Baka madagdagan mo pa. Mabuti pa ay bumalik ka na agad sa San Francisco.
Mijares: But, sir, there is no way I can back out now. I have already placed myself under the jurisdiction of the Subcommittee.
Marcos: Here is Gimo (De Vega) and he has something to tell you.
De Vega: Tibo, bumatsi ka na diyan and Trining (Alconcel) will arrange for you ‘cinquenta’ in San Francisco.
Mijares: Mogs, hindi na pwede. Nasabi ko na sa Komite na nandito na ako sa Washington. I have to testify.
De Vega: Iyong figure ay libo. And you will get another fifty when you leave the United States. Since you may not want to come home to Manila, you may want to go to Australia to be with your sister. We will send you another fifty upon your arrival here.
Mijares: Salamat na lang, Mogs. Pero, hindi kita pwedeng mapagbigyan.
De Vega: I will not accept your negative answer now. Pag-aralan mong mabuti iyan, Tibo. You know very well that, if you testify that would mean a Declaration of War on your part against us here.
Mijares: I realize that, and you can be sure I will act accordingly. Goodbye, Doc.
De Vega: Sige na, Tibo. Take care of yourself. Trining will contact you.
Everything that Mijares said to the Congress was elaborated in his 1976 book The Conjugal Dictatorship of Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos. Of course, Marcos denied that he made that phone call to Mijares attempting to pay him out of his testimony. Some Marcos loyalists assert that Tibo only testified to Congress because he made a deal with the Lopez clan in the US (given that Eugenio Sr. was his former boss, and the Lopez family became a bitter rival of Marcos). That Tibo was a turncoat opportunist. Maybe they’re right. But what Tibo did will not only risk his life, but also his family’s. Such grave accusations that he said about the Marcos regime to the Congress will also be punished by perjury if ever he’s actually lying. Besides, if whatever Mijares said were all falsehoods, why would Marcos bother bribing him? Could it be that because he was scared that Tibo knew too much? Even the former president Diosdado Macapagal shared this same sentiment in his book giving a commentary to Mijares case:
…Marcos denied the attempted bribery but from a scrutiny of Mijares’ testimony, the statement of denial and the circumstances described, the probability favors Mijares….If Mijares were not credible, he would not have merited refutation by Mr. Marcos himself as well as a formal exculpatory inquiry into the Mijares charges by the Senior Undersecretary of the Foreign Affairs.
Whether or not Mijares was an opportunist is irrelevant. That doesn’t reduce the truthfulness and reliability of his statements in any way. That doesn’t make him a liar for exposing his dictator boss, knowing that what he said can get him killed by a Marcos hitman. He’s already lying on a soft mattress, why would he want to go down and sleep in a cold floormat? I don’t think money will make him do that. He could’ve just accepted the bribe and ran away peacefully. But he never backed out.
The Conjugal Dictatorship of Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos
Mijares wasn’t trying to paint himself as a noble saint battling the evil Marcos regime. He was far from it. He was illegally married to a certain Virginia Concha in US in 1969 while still married to Judge Priscilla. Most importantly, he wasn’t a so-called “Dilawan” in any shape or form. In fact, he was very vocal about him being the accomplice of whatever his boss’ administration had committed. He didn’t bat an eye on any sinister plots that Marcos, his cronies, his cabinet, and his military planned and executed, at least until his conscience finally gave up. Tibo confessed on the introduction about one of the reasons why did he wrote his Conjugal Dictatorship book.
It is that I wanted to make a public expiation for the little influence that I had exercised on the late Don Eugenio Lopez into handpicking a certain Ferdinand E. Marcos as his candidate for the presidency of the Philippines in the elections of 1965. Would the Filipinos be suffering from a conjugal dictatorship now, if I had not originally planted in Lopez’s consciousness in 1962 that Marcos was the “unbeatable candidate” for 1965?
Tibo spilled a lot of tea on his exposé. Some are now already a common knowledge, while some are surprising (at least to me). To list all of the revelations that he told on his book would take forever to type, so we are now going to stick into some of the most important. The main idea that Mijares debunked on his book is that the martial law was an impulse decision by Marcos as a quick response to the communist threat. No, it’s not. It was a carefully thought-out scheme that was already well-planned by the dictator years ago to win on 1969 elections at all costs. Marcos knew that he can only have 4 years in office on a single term, so in order to stay in power, he had to win the 1969 presidential elections against Sergio Osmeña Jr. whatever it takes. Tibo described that election as the one of the dirtiest in Philippine history, because Marcos utilized “guns, goons, and gold” to win it. Election violence, vote buying, ballot manipulation, you name it. The usual stuff.
But even if he managed to secure a second term, the despot wasn’t content. He wanted to go beyond 8 years. He couldn’t swallow the thought of him being an ex-president at a young age. So what’s the best plan? To declare martial law at least one year before his term ends. But in order to do that, Marcos had to show to the public that there is a state of lawlessness. He used the growing number of student activists and leftist groups protesting their complaints and grievances as an opportunity to manufacture chaos in Metro Manila. Mijares told how Marcos and his military used psychological warfare to project a sense of anarchy and a climate of fear (which was exaggerated at best and false at worst), and they did that by planting bombs on Manila’s water system, Manila City Hall, the restrooms of the Constitutional Convention building in Quezon City, parts of Manila business districts, and others, except the Malacañang of course. After those bombs exploded, the government will conveniently blame all of these to their all-time favorite scapegoat, the communists.
They would also infiltrate student demonstrations through terror bombs, so if they exploded, the protesters will be provoked to commit violence against the constabulary, then Marcos’ press will flip the story to make it look as if it was the rallyists who planted the bombs. Wow, talk about gaslighting to the next level.
Military psychological warfare experts, employing trained Constabulary and Air Force personnel, started cooking the books to make the data on the impending revolution conform to the desires of President Marcos. These psy-war experts staged, or rather, instigated, violent demonstrations with only slight variations in time, alternating between 5 pm and 9 pm. They established a pattern of early-evening demonstrations, which in later months became more violent, with “demos” resorting to vandalism….The plot and pattern were so symmetrical and neatly executed that none in Manila — except Malacañang and the Supreme Court — believed that the Communists were behind it, but rather the psy-war experts of the military. No one was even bruised during the “terroristic” bombing.
Marcos’ manipulation of public perception didn’t end there. He and his military also staged a raid on a “mystery ship” called MB Karagatan in Digoyo Point, Palanan, Isabela. The military claimed that the ship came from the Maoist China and it contained arm supplies for the New People’s Army. There even was a “shoot-out” between the Marcos soldiers and the “NPA guerillas”. But the strange thing is that none of those supposed guerillas were killed in action, and it turned out that those guerillas were members of the Presidential Security Group. It was all “baril-barilan”. How do we know that the Digoyo Raid was staged? Because the prop guns that they “confiscated” were the same guns that were used to stage the Enrile ambush!
But does that mean that the communist rebels never committed violence? Of course not. They still did. But they were not threatening enough to be considered a threat to national security, which means a nationwide martial law is completely unnecessary. Normal military operations are enough to squander the local communist insurgency in the countryside. Before PD 1081, the members of the New People’s Army were more or less just a thousand. Those numbers were not enough to spark a revolution, besides, they lack weapons. They have no match to the military. Ironically, it was during the martial law when NPA membership skyrocketed, mainly because most anti-Marcos activists were left no choice but to hide and resort to armed struggle.
While the military was busy cooking up their schemes, Marcos was also busy grabbing all of the powers of the three branches of the government. He dissolved the Congress and transferred to power of lawmaking to himself through executive orders, letters of instruction, and presidential decrees. He made the Supreme Court (and frankly, the whole justice system) his bitch. Through General Order №1, he ordered the Supreme Court that they can continue doing their thing as long as they don’t question the legitimacy of PD 1081 and his other orders and decrees. While through Letter of Instruction №11, he demanded all of the appointable national government officials to submit a resignation letter in advance but will not accept at first. So if ever that government official does something that the dictator will not like, he could just accept the resignation letter and then bye-bye.
Even the Constitutional Convention wasn’t safe from the maneuvering hands of Marcos. In order to cover his martial law with a cloak of legality and extend his term indefinitely, he had to change the constitution before his term ends. Through a series of bribery and coercion, the president was able to make the members of ConCon say yes on the 1973 Constitution. They even made a fake referendum to make it appear that the public was overwhelmingly in favor of changing the constitution. Tibo knew about this because he was himself a member of the team led by Marcos’ favorite brother-in-law, Leyte Governor Benjamin “Kokoy” Romualdez, that doctored the referendum results. Looking at these facts, we can say that Marcos ceased to be a legitimate president beyond December 31, 1973. He was a usurper at best. His goal was to be the dictator for life and he will be succeeded a la royal monarchy by his son Bongbong Marcos (which is now, tragically, the current president).
The whole plot of Marcos was to rule in Malacañang long enough for him to be able to prepare his son, Ferdinand Jr., popularly known as “Bongbong” to take over as the next ruler. In doing so, he would start a royal hereditary succession to the imperial throne; Imelda is a standby heir and is programmed to act as queen regent for Bongbong.
Being a methodical man that he was, the plan to declare martial law was already on the mind of Marcos as early as 1965, during his first presidential elections. But his desire to be an authoritarian leader goes way back in the 1930s, when he was still a law student at the University of the Philippines. In fact, the theme of his thesis revolved around the implementation of constitutional authoritarianism in the Philippines. In other words, becoming a dictator was already his life-long dream.
Mijares’ The Conjugal Dictatorship brought up other controversies, like the Oplan Sagittarius, the Plaza Miranda Bombing, the tortures and killings, the seizure of all media property, the censorship, the government propaganda, the unjust arrests of Ninoy Aquino and other opposition members, the hunger strike of Geny Lopez and Serge Osmeña, the dictator’s sexual escapades with other women (especially Dovie Beams), how the US abetted the Marcos regime, how Marcos was fond of distorting historical records, how extravagant and petty Imelda was, how the Marcos-Lopez feud began, how he faked his war hero status, and of course, how Marcos got away from murdering Julio Nalundasan, his father’s political rival, in 1935. The Nalundasan Murder Case is already a very interesting topic to talk about that it deserves another story.
Vanished Like a Bubble
Obviously, Tibo’s book was banned in the Philippines, and owning one of the copies could mean jailtime. He pissed off a lot of people in Malacañang, especially getting under the skin of the First Lady. The only people who read The Conjugal Dictatorship during the 1970s aside from the government, were the anti-Marcos activists hiding underground. Because of what he did, Mijares couldn’t go back to the Philippines, and couldn’t go on living his life without constantly looking over his shoulders.
First month of 1977, the Marcos regime lured him to go back to the Philippines, for whatever reason. On board with a helicopter, Tibo flew from Guam to the Philippines together with General Fabian Ver, one of Marcos’ most trusted military man, and a nephew of the former Chief Justice Querube Makalintal. That was the last time that anyone ever knew his whereabouts. It was January 23 when he made his last phone call to his family. He became part of the group of people that disappeared during the Martial Law period, called Desaparecidos. Up until now, no one knows where he actually is.
Mijares’ family assumed at first that Tibo was just hiding somewhere and waiting for the Marcos regime to be over. But the thing is, major anti-Marcos critics abroad like Raul Manglapus and Heherson “Sonny” Alvarez all managed to resurface and go back to the Philippines after the EDSA Revolution. But not even a shadow of Mijares showed up. Let’s not kid ourselves here. The most likely scenario is that he was killed by Marcos’ men, only that they were good at hiding his corpse. One urban legend even says that Tibo was pushed out of the helicopter while they were still flying across the Pacific Ocean. But his family never bought that story. Wherever he is right now, it is almost certain that he is long been dead. However, his son suffered a much worse fate.
Boyet’s Torture and Murder
May 31, 1977. A corpse of a badly mutilated boy was found on the mountains of Antipolo, Rizal. Apparently, the body was dropped from a helicopter mid-air, most likely government-owned. His body was full of dark bruises and cigarette burns, his head was repeatedly smashed and bashed, his torso was stabbed by an ice pick 33 times, his tongue was cut out, and his eyeball was plucked. He was not a political activist, nor a communist rebel. He was a good 16-year-old high school boy who excelled in academics. So what exactly was his sin? Being the son of Tibo Mijares. The poor boy was Luis Manuel Mijares, also known as “Boyet”.
Before his disappearance on May 14, family members noticed that Boyet had a phone pal in their landline. The other side of the line told him that his father wants to see him. The last time they saw him was when he told to his mom, Judge Priscilla, that he was going to watch a movie in a mall with his phone pal. Boyet then told one of his yaya that he’s going to see his dad. He never went back home ever since. Weeks later, he’s a mangled corpse. The Constabulary ruled out Boyet’s case as another kidnap-for-ransom, since Judge Priscilla received multiple calls from someone demanding P200,000 in exchange for her son. The caller claimed to be a member of the Bangsa Moro Army. Turns out that the ransom call was a goddamn sham, as Boyet was already murdered the day he disappeared. The police report had a lot of holes as to who really killed the boy. The assigned Metropolitan Command (MetroCom) officer on this case was a police officer named Panfilo Lacson (yes, the one and only Ping Lacson), and his reports said that they traced the calls of Boyet’s phone pal from the University of the Philippines Diliman campus.
As the constabulary was able to trace the calls, Judge Priscilla and her children soon realized that their phone line was being wiretapped by the Marcos government the whole time, further raising the suspicion that the government had a role on Boyet’s torture-slay. Lacson;s anti-kidnapping unit concluded that Boyet was recruited by UP Diliman’s Tau Gamma Phi fraternity, and he was just a hazing victim. Three of those frat members were even arrested and jailed. What the hell were they talking about? How could have Boyet be recruited in a college frat if he was still an upcoming 4th year high school student in Lourdes School in Quezon City? What kind of college student would own a helicopter (which was used to drop Boyet’s body)? And why would those college students torture and mutilate a harmless boy that way? Despite the police claiming that it was another ordinary case of kidnap-for-ransom, Judge Priscilla have always known that his son’s torture and murder was connected to the disappearance of her husband. It all comes back to Tibo testifying to US Congress and publishing a book exposing Marcos corruption and atrocities. She even received some intels that Tibo was made to watch his son being tortured by the military before being killed.
If I were Marcos, it would be somewhat reasonable if I want Mijares gone. I mean, Tibo knew too much about him, even his personal and political secret plans. But really? Why the need to get his innocent son involved? What did the boy do to them? For revenge? Revenge for writing a book? Why is it that the saying “The sins of the father is not the sins of the son” only seem to be applicable to Bongbong Marcos, but suddenly not to Boyet Mijares? Whatever sin Tibo had committed during his Marcos propagandist days, he still never deserved what happened to him, and especially to his son. Frankly, no martial law victim, whether innocent or guilty, deserved the torture that they suffered from the hands of the power-hungry military and constabulary.
Conclusion
The story of Primitivo Mijares must make the Filipino people realize that our freedom of speech is not at all free. Somebody’s blood has paid for it. What Tibo has done is also a good demonstration that it’s never too late to change for the better, and never too late to fight for the common people rather than for the oppressor. In the end, he sided on preserving his integrity as a journalist. When it comes to grappling our dark and terrible history, we still have a long way to travel. Our history will only be tarnished, forgotten, distorted, and abandoned if we will allow it. But considering the current state of our political climate, it is evident that we are screwing things up.
This month is the 50th anniversary of the declaration of PD 1081 by one of the most notorious despots of Southeast Asia. But we don’t commemorate it for Marcos, but for those who were never afraid to call out an unjust government; those who desired for a better Philippines; and those who demanded accountability. But look at what we did? We managed to bring back into power the family that caused their pain and suffering. And they are now stronger than ever, with their millions of fanatical supporters willing to distort history for their political gain. It is just a matter of time before this generation also experience the social turmoil that the generation five decades ago have suffered. Seriously? Do we even have to wait for the time to come that we will going to say, “I told you so”?
History repeats itself, first as a tragedy and second as a farce, as the saying goes. But let us not forget that it is up to us, the people, to let that happen. Because the moment that we ignore the lessons of the past, that we let the cycle of social cancer to be repeated, that makes us the biggest buffoons. But at least Tibo knew his place in history. He may never wished that his book will dismantle the Marcos tyranny for good, but it sure helped the people (at least those who are willing to open their eyes on the realities of our society) to demand for change and call out injustices. Whether you choose to stand up or shut up is totally up to you. But careful not to defend and devote yourself into the oppressive political machinery that ruled and rules this country, lest you desire to end up being on the wrong side of history.
I entertain no illusions that my puny work would dislodge Ferdinand and Imelda from their concededly entrenched position. However, history teaches us that dictators always fall, either on account of their own corrupt weight or sheer physical exhaustion. I am hopeful that this work would somehow set off or contribute to the ignition of a chain reaction that would compel Marcos to relinquish his vise-like dictatorial grip on his own countrymen. When the Filipino is then set free, and could participate in cheerful cry over the restoration pf freedom and democracy in the Philippines, that cry shall be the fitting finish to this: my humble work.
Sources
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Published on September 17, 2022
