Bacoor City Mayor Lani Mercado-Revilla erroneously tweets about Imelda Marcos’ supposed death, but the mayor claims she was hacked
‘VERY WELL.’ Ilocos Norte 2nd District Representative Imelda Marcos attends the House session on May 8, 2017. Photo by Mara Cepeda/Rappler
MANILA, Philippines – The Iron Butterfly is still here.
Ilocos Norte 2nd District Representative Imelda Marcos was an early bird during the House session on Monday, May 8, several hours after social media went abuzz about her supposed death.
“Ito, buhay pa (I’m still alive)… [I’m] very well,” said Marcos, who was wearing a green terno.
“Ito nakakapasok pa ‘ko sa Congress tsaka nangunguna kami (I still go to Congress and I’m even early),” added Marcos, who was surrounded by her staff as she spoke to the media.
The 87-year-old had to ask for her staff’s help to clarify questions from reporters.
Late Sunday evening, May 7, Bacoor City Mayor Lani Mercado-Revilla tweeted her condolences to the Marcos family for the supposed death of the family matriarch.
“Our condolences to the Marcos family. It was a pleasure and a privilege to work with Cong. Imelda Romualdez Marcos,” said Mercado-Revilla, who was previously Cavite 2nd District representative.
Revilla deleted the tweet about a minute after posting, but netizens were quick to take screenshots of her post.
The Bacoor mayor then tweeted an apology on Monday morning.
“I would like to apologize for my tweet which I have erased. I received a news break message informing the public about Mrs. Marcos,” said Revilla.
But she also deleted the apology tweet.
A staff member of her cousin-in-law, Cavite 2nd District Representative Strike Revilla, then told House reporters that the Bacoor mayor’s Twitter account was supposedly hacked.
“Hindi si Mayor ang nag-send ng condolences kay Mrs Marcos. Hindi din siya ang nag-send ng apology. Her account was hacked. Pinapa-investigate na kung ano nangyari,” said Amy Manzo.
(It was not Mayor who sent the condolences for Mrs Marcos. She was also not the one who issued the apology. Her account was hacked. We are investigating how it happened.)
“Eh ang ibig sabihin nun siguro suwerte kasi sasabihin na hindi tama (That probably means I got lucky because I can correct what was wrong),” said Marcos. – Rappler.com
This resolution comes 12 years after the appeal by the PCGG
MANILA, Phiippines – It’s another one off the back of embattled former senator Juan Ponce Enrile.
He’s no longer a defendant in a 1987 civil suit against Marcos and his cronies in connection with behest loans considered part of the late dictator’s ill-gotten wealth.
The anti-graft court Sandiganbayan affirmed in an April 18 ruling a resolution issued in 2004 removing Enrile from a list of 14 defendants connected with P670 million worth of behest loans.
A behest loan is credit considered unlawful because it is disadvantageous to the lender, the government.
Behest loans were what made up the bulk of civil suits against the Marcoses as part of the government campaign to go after all their ill-gotten wealth. (READ: Anatomy of a behest loan)
The 1987 case which used to include Enrile involves former president Ferdinand Marcos, Imelda Marcos, and Eduardo “Danding” Cojuangco Jr.
During Marcos’ presidency, when Enrile served as defense minister, P670 million worth of loans were granted to companies owned or controlled by Cojuangco, namely Northern Cement Corporation and Integrated Textile Mills Corporation.
The loans came from the Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP) and were considered behest or unlawful because the companies had inadequate collaterals, and the projects which the loans were for never materialized.
In his motion filed on May 15, 2001, Enrile pointed out that the complaint failed to specify what unlawful action he was supposed to have committed to warrant his inclusion in the case.
He said that neither the complaint nor the pre-trial brief submitted by the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) provided a basis for the case against him.
In December 2004, the Sandiganbayan first division excluded Enrile because the complaint filed before the court did not make a single mention of Enrile’s participation in the transactions. Enrile’s name is seen only in the first pages of the information where the defendants are listed.
“With no single evidence on the record linking defendant to the alleged conspiracy, his motion to be dropped from the complaint must be granted,” ruled the first division, which was then composed of now Supreme Court (SC) justices Teresita Leonardo-De Castro and Diosdado Peralta, and dismissed justice Gregory Ong.
The PCGG, tasked to recover Marcos’ loot, appealed the resolution on January 12, 2005. Enrile filed his opposition the following month.
“In the subject motion for reconsideration, the plaintiff still failed to include factual averments to demonstrate the participation of defendant Enrile in the acquisition of ill-gotten wealth,” the April 18, 2017 resolution said.
The resolution was penned by second division chair Associate Justice Michael Frederick Musngi with concurrences from Associate Justices Oscar Herrera and Zaldy Trespeses.
The case against all the other accused remains alive.
In all, there were 43 civil suits against the Marcoses in the Sandiganbayan. Eighteen of them have been dismissed, two were archived, and one has been won in favor of the government. The victory has returned to government Imelda’s “Malacañang Jewelry Collection.” – Rappler.com
A House bill seeks to make the Solicitor General in charge of the PCGG, tasked with recovering the Marcoses’ ill-gotten wealth. Solicitor General Jose Calida supported the vice-presidential bid of Ferdinand Marcos Jr.
BACK THEN. Solicitor General Jose Calida is interviewed by Rappler as a member of Alyansang Duterte-Bongbong during the 2016 campaign. Photo by Pia Ranada/Rappler
If their bill is signed into law, it would be interesting how it would be implemented under the Duterte administration given the current Solicitor General’s leanings.
Solicitor General Jose Calida is a true blue Marcos loyalist.
During the 2016 campaign season, he was even among the leaders of the Alyansang Duterte-Bongbong which campaigned for the tandem of Rodrigo Duterte and Ferdinand Marcos Jr.
Calida was interviewed by this reporter during then-presidential candidate Duterte’s sortie in Ilocos Norte.
Watch the report with the interview here:
It was during that same sortie when Duterte promised a hero’s burial for the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos, a promise he kept.
Calida’s dream team, however, was not to be. Marcos Jr or “Bongbong,” the only son of the late strongman, was narrowly defeated in the vice presidential race by the Liberal Party’s Leni Robredo. A group within Duterte’s circle, however, continues to prefer Marcos as vice president.
In an interview with reporters on Wednesday, March 29, Calida gave assurances his leanings back during the campaign season will not affect his work as Solicitor General.
“I’m now a government official. The elections before has no more bearing [on] my duty as a government official. It doesn’t matter to me,” he said.
House Bill Number 5233, filed by Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez, Majority Leader Rodolfo Fariñas, and House justice committee chairperson Reynaldo Umali, seeks to place the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) under the Office of the Solicitor General.
The same bill places the Office of the Government Corporate Counsel under Calida’s office and upgrades his rank, benefits, and privileges. – Rappler.com
MANILA – On December 7, 1982, the Metropolitan Command Intelligence Service Group (MISG) on orders of President Ferdinand Marcos, raided the offices and printing plant of WE Forum, which had been most critical of the dictatorship.
Arrested and jailed were more than a dozen staffers and columnists of the Mosquito Press trailblazer, led by publisher-editor Jose Burgos Jr.
Rushing to help the beleaguered media workers and Burgos’ wife, Edita, were human rights lawyers Joker Arroyo, Rene AV Saguisag and Jojo Binay. They lawyered for Burgos et al in the subversion case filed in court.
Their colleague Bobby Tañada and his law firm partner Martiniano Vivo would later serve as lead counsel in the Supreme Court, which declared, in December 1984, the WE Forum raid illegal, and all evidence as “fruit of the poisoned tree.’
The trial of the criminal case filed by the Marcos regime against Burgos, for subversion, would take longer, and would only be dismissed right after the dictator had fled to Hawaii, in the 1986 EDSA People Power Revolt.
The lessons of the WE Forum raid, coming just three days before the global commemoration of Human Rights Day – resonate today because the dictatorship cracked down on the paper just after it published the well-researched series of ex-Col. Bonifacio Gillego casting doubt on Marcos’ war record.
Among others, Gillego’s articles said:
Most of the medals/awards of Marcos were granted decades after the end of World War II, mostly by he Armed Forces of the Philippines, in the 1960s.
As a rule, war honors are recommended within two years of an event, when corroboration by witnesses is still possible.
* The medal count varied, apparently because, Gillego said, Marcos had used so many propagandists and lobbyists, some of whom made fantastic claims.
* Some of Marcos’ incredible claims as war hero included: (a) he was the hero of Bessang Pass; (b) he delayed the fall of Bataan by 3 months; (c) General Yamashita surrendered to him.
34 years later: who lies where
Today, 34 years after the infamous WE Forum raid that drew global outrage, Joe Burgos and several of his writers who have since died lie in simple private graves. Their names, though, are inscribed at the Bantayog ng mga Bayani, a private-led initiative.
But Ferdinand E. Marcos is buried at the Libingan ng mga Bayani, beside the true heroes of the last war. This, over the continuing objections of thousands of Filipinos, not least of them the ones who suffered under martial law with the killings of over 3,000 and the disappearance, arbitrary arrests and torture of over 10,000 others.
Also protesting are those who lived through the dark chapter in history; and more recently, no less than the head of the National Historical Commission of the Philippines (NHCP), Maria Serena Diokno, who resigned her post after State forces and the Marcos family carried out President Duterte’s orders allowing the ex-president’s burial at LNMB, despite the NHCP’s submission to him of a detailed study on Marcos’ dubious war record.
The truth really hurts
Several years after retiring from the military service, the late Col. Rolando Abadilla would still justify their celebrated raid on the hard-hitting tabloid on Dec. 7, 1982
As chief of the Philippine Constabulary’s (MISG), he believed he was merely his doing job.
That, even if the Supreme Court had declared “null and void” the court warrant that the Metrocom used to legitimize the raid. The High Tribunal had assailed as “broad” the statement of Abadilla’s court request.
Abadilla, in his request before Judge Ernani Cruz Paño of the Quezon City Regional Trial Court, had claimed that WE Forum was “in possession or has in its control printing equipment and other paraphernalia, news publications and othr documents which were used and all are continuously being used as a means of commtting the offense of subversion punishable under Presidential Decree 885.”
Amending the old anti-subversion law, Mr. Marcos’ PD885 actually penalized political offenses with as high as capital punishment, in a brazen bid to deter dissent and control the mass media during martial law.
The High Tribunal nevertheless noted that it a “mere conclusion of law and does not satisfy the requirement of probable cause.”
Obviously, when the WE Forum was raided and padlocked, the State was reacting to the late Col. Bonifacio Gillego’s 11-page report published by the tabloid several weeks before the raid, under various titles, among them: “Marcos: Hero of Kiangan Who Never Was,” and with the subhead “He exploits honors he may not have earned.”
That article was based on the same report from the US-based Philippine News publication, with the head, “Marcos is a fake hero, says his ex-commander,” and by-lined by Gillego, a former intelligence officer who had joined the anti-dictatorship Movement for a Free Philippines.
Every page of Gillego’s report was signed and concurred in by Col. Romulo Manriquez and Captain Vicente Rivera, the commander and adjutant, respectively of the 14th Infantry where Mr. Marcos allegedly earned his war medals during World War II.
Despite the censorship in media, the raid was surprisingly widely publicized in all metropolitan dailies, and covered extensively on television.
Subversion case dismissed
Right after the 1986 People Power revolution, Judge Paño dismissed the subversion charges against Burgos and the WE Forum staff. The chief prosecutor then, Sergio Apostol, said they actually moved for dismissal since there was “no more sense prosecuting the defendants with subversion against the previous administration.”
But Abadilla had said that he still believed the government was being undermined by the We Forum, forcing authorities to act against the Burgos Jr and his staff, when they raided the newspaper offices in Quezon City.
Among those dragged to detention were the paper’s production manager Eduardo, circulation manager Angel Tronqued, and key writers and columnists led by UP’s iconic martial law dissenter, Dean Armando Malay.
Abadilla admitted that although he was earlier blamed for the arrest of several political prisoners, the raid on WE Forum was one of the instances where he had an actual encounter with prominent political “dissidents.”
Former Sen. Rene Saguisag later recalled that he couldn’t forget the grim-looking Abadilla, whose “passion and anger” forced him to punch the wall at the WE Forum office, causing a gaping hole. The Abadilla gesture, recalled later as well by Joker Arroyo and Edith Burgos, was apparently done if only to control himself from punching lawyers, as Saguisag and Jejomar Binay, as volunteer counsel, were confronting the military officers during the raid.
Edith elaborated: Abadilla blew his top when he apparently realized why the soldiers were taking too long in documenting the materials being carted away by raiders. The group of MABINI and FLAG lawyers had demanded that each and every piece of document taken, each and every issue of the newspaper, be noted down on a logbook – a process that caused the raiders to stay in the premises till late afternoon, after Burgos et al. had been taken to jail.
It wasn’t surprising that Arroyo, Saguisag and Binay along with the late Sen. Lorenzo Tanada, who “deployed” his son Wigberto and their law partner Martiniano Vivo, passionately defended all the accused, until the criminal charges against them were dismissed. Having defended hundreds of dissenters who had run afoul of the dictator, it was clear to them that the WE Forum raid had struck a blow right in the heart of the democratic movement, because it was the first aboveground opposition paper that had drawn a significant following. Its circulation had grown leaps and bounds, despite starting from the meager resources scraped together by Burgos with help from his father Joe Sr., who had made a modest fortune from community publishing.
But as ardent as the Burgos lawyers were in defending them, Marcos’ military officers never gave up in their zeal to prosecute. Abadilla, for one, remained firm in his position, that they had done nothing wrong. In time, Abadilla left active military duty and opted to serve as an elected official in Mr. Marcos’ home province of Ilocos Norte after briefly being detained on alleged possible involvement in the 1987 failed coup plot against the strongman’s successor Corazon Aquino. He was later gunned down by suspected communist hitmen.
And while Abadilla’s critics continued to assail him and the MISG for their “notoriety,” he was later surprisingly praised by his subalterns, many of whom would later land top senior positions, not only in the Philippine National Police (PNP) – the successor of the Philippine Constabulary – but as elected officials in government.
In its Dec. 26, 1984 ruling, the High Court noted how the WE Forum case showed the “seriousness and urgency of the constitutional issues raised, not to mention the public interested generated by the search.”
One concurring associate justice minced no words: “The action against ‘WE Forum’ was naked suppression of press freedom for the search warrants were issued in gross violation of the Constitution.”
The WE Forum case triggered a resurgence of dissent in media, which had expectedly become tamer after the declaration of martial law, the shutdown of all newspapers and broadcast networks, a massive crackdown on journalists and the self-censorship that characterized the crony publications dominating the industry.
A little more than a month after the WE Forum raid, and over the objections of his lawyer Arroyo, Burgos Jr. would launch another paper to fill in the gap left by his publication: Ang Pahayagang Malaya, the tiny, Filipino-language sister publication of the WE Forum, was re-launched, this time as an English-language fortnightly on Jan. 17, 1983. Like WE Forum, it would soon pick up pace and draw in more readers, multiplying its audience a few months later for its credible, comprehensive coverage of the Ninoy Aquino assassination, and the subsequent protests that marked the twilight years of the Marcos regime until the 1986 EDSA revolt.
Arroyo would later recall, in remarks at an event honoring Burgos for having been chosen one of the “50 World Press Freedom Heroes of the 21st Century” by the International Press Institute, how strongly he objected to Burgos’ idea of coming out with Ang Pahayang Malaya just a month after the WE Forum raid, when the QC RTC hearings were still ongoing. But, Arroyo said, the journalist replied with something like “being a journalist is the only thing I do. If I can’t continue to publish, what else is there left for me?”
With that, said Arroyo – who himself shunned honors despite his key role in the dictatorship, and even left prior strict orders he would not have a public wake when he died in October 2015 – he and the other human rights lawyers acceded to Joe’s plan, and continued to defend him and his staffers until the end of the dictatorship.
The Samahan ng mga Ex-detainees Laban sa Detensyon at Aresto (SELDA), the organization of ex-detainees formed under Martial Law Period which led the 9,539 victims under the Martial Law period and initiated the filing of the historic class action suit against former Pres. Ferdinand Marcos and family, today welcomed the news on US District Judge Manuel Real’s approval of the distribution of funds from the settlement agreement by the Campos family, a Marcos crony.
“We welcome the news that, for the first time since the victims’ victory in the historic class action suit in the Federal District Court Hawaii in 1992, finally, a component of justice, which is indemnification, can be served to some of the victims of Martial Law.
This move actually signifies the victory of Martial Law victims in their struggle to obtain justice and recognition for their fight for human rights,” former Rep. Satur Ocampo, National Board member of SELDA and one of the 9,539 victims in the class action suit against Marcos in the US.
Ocampo said the money that will be distributed to the victims will come from the $10M settlement by the Campos family, a Marcos crony, with the victims. “The settlement has proven the very well known fact that the Marcoses stashed money from the people’s coffers and allowed dummies and cronies to hold these for them. This is a vindication for the victims and the Filipino people’s fight against corruption of the hated conjugal dictatorship,” he added.
“The settlement also shows the government that indeed indemnification can be given to the victims as the cronies are now settling these ages-old transgressions. It is a call to the government to likewise serve justice to the victims of Martial Law by finally enacting into law the Marcos Victims Compensation measures (House Bills 954 and 1693) filed by Bayan Muna. It must be borne in mind that the recovery of the $640M fund transferred by the Swiss government to the Philippine government in 1998 and ordered transferred by the Philippine Supreme Court to the national treasury in 2003 was realized because of the victims’ struggle to hold the Marcoses accountable for human rights violations,” Ocampo further asserted.
While SELDA welcomes the news on the distribution of funds to the victims, they called on Atty. Robert Swift, as the court-appointed legal counsel of the victims, to explain and answer the various questions raised by the victims why only $7.5M dollars out of the approved $10M settlement will be distributed to the victims, why only 7,526 of the 9,539 victims will get indemnified from the settlement, and who and when was the number of 7,526 victims approved.
“While we recognize the efforts of Atty. Swift on identifying and going after crony money of the Marcoses, we raise questions as to how he has considered the victims’ views on the case. Initially, SELDA opposed the settlement based on these questions we raised to the court-appointed counsel. We hope that the settlement will pave the way for government to finally enact the Marcos Victims Compensation bills so that the Martial Law victims will finally get the justice, indemnification and recognition they fully deserve,” Ocampo concluded.
MARTIAL Law victims led by the Samahan ng Ex-detainees Laban sa Detensyon at Aresto (SELDA) today challenged President Noynoy Aquino to enact the Marcos Victims Compensation Bill into law as the nation commemorates the 40th year of imposition of Martial Law this month.
“It should make for a categorical pronouncement and decisive action to render the long-overdue justice for victims of human rights violations during the Marcos dictatorship,” said Bonfacio Ilagan, vice-chairperson of SELDA and a Martial Law victim himself. Ilagan was arrested, tortured and detained during Martial Law, while his sister, Rizalina, was among those who were forcibly disappeared.
“We demand no less than that, as it has become extremely disappointing that the son of Ninoy, who fought Marcos’ martial law, continues to be remiss in expediting the measure that would at least help victims of the dictatorship gain some justice after all these years,” said Ilagan.
“What’s keeping you, Mr. President? Is it the fear of the Marcoses, whose members are well-positioned again in politics — with Bongbong as Senator, Imelda as Congresswoman and Imee as Governor of Ilocos Norte — that has held you back in pursuing justice for the victims of martial law? Or is it because you have to keep them close to your heart as political allies, to include such a Martial Law relic as Senate Pres. Juan Ponce Enrile?” Ilagan asked.
Ilagan added that “the Marcoses are not only back in power, they continue to count and hold in their possession wealth that was stolen by the former dictator from the Filipinos.”
In May this year, Imelda Marcos ranked as the 2nd richest solon in Congress. In August, P36.55 million in her account at the Philippine Veteran’s Bank dwindled to just more than a million pesos due to still-unexplained withdrawals. Marcos crony Lucio Tan is US$23M richer, after the Singapore court awarded back to the Philippine National Bank this part of the Marcos ill-gotten wealth returned by the Swiss Government to the Philippines in 1997.
“In his first two State of the Nation addresses, Aquino declared the indemnification bill a priority. But in his last SONA, he was completely silent about it. Meanwhile, the Senate, led by Enrile, has not even taken it up in its plenary sessions. SELDA is enraged that a long-overdue bill should further be delayed, while the money that Marcos stole from the Filipino people remains in the possession of his heirs, or else stolen once more by corrupt government officials in whose custody it was entrusted,” Ilagan decried.
SELDA is set to conduct activities this September to push for the passage of the bill and demand justice for all victims of human rights violations from Martial Law up to the current Aquino.
