‘The former First Lady must be the one to speak for the family now because she knows more than any of the children,’ says former President Fidel V. Ramos
RAPPLER TALK. Former President Fidel Ramos speaks with Rappler executive editor Maria Ressa
MANILA, Philippines – Former President Fidel V. Ramos urged the widow of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos to put closure on issues that the country still couldn’t put to rest decades after his death.
Imelda Marcos currently serves as the representative of the 2nd district of Ilocos Norte, where the family of the country’s late dictator continues to rule through the years.
“I said this in public already. I said the former First Lady must be the one to speak for the family now because she knows more than any of the children. Number 1, where’s the rest of the hidden wealth? Number 2, what happened in August 1983. Really, what happened? It was not [Rolando] Galman,” Ramos told Rappler executive editor Maria Ressa in a Rappler Talk interview.
Rolando Galman was the other person killed on the tarmac when Aquino arrived in Manila after 3 years of exile. Galman was gunned down by an airport security personnel after he supposedly shot Aquino at close range. It was an account that has been widely contested. (READ: Look back: The Aquino assassination)
Ramos called on Imelda to speak when he was asked if he was surprised about the rise of Marcos’ son and namesake, former Senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr, who made a good showing in the May 2016 vice presidential election. However, Marcos Jr lost by a slim margin to now Vice President Leni Robredo, based on the official tally.
He said he has “nothing against” Bongbong. It is Imelda who should speak out because “she knows more than any of the children.”
“In his own way he’s good. Persuasive. I know him. I have nothing against him. I’ve nothing against the children,” he said about the former senator.
Ramos, the chief of Philippine Constabulary that implemented martial law, was a key personality in the People Power revolution that ousted Marcos in 1986. (READ: Key players in the 1986 People Power revolution)
A cousin of the late strongman, he said the elder Marcos served well during the initial years of his term. But he said withdrew support from government and backed the rebel soldiers because he couldn’t stomach the corruption in government anymore.
“Why did I go against this guy? Well it’s because of, again, what is in the constitution? [It was the] 1935 [Constitution] at that time. 1987 na (now). You obey the orders of your superiors, your commanding officer if they have legal orders. But when he started to stray during the Martial Law years, you know,” Ramos said.
“What was the term? ‘Mining.’ Hey, you’re nice? Mine, mine, mine. ‘Mining’ was the term. Of course that went against my basic values and so with so many others. So, we all agreed. We just have to stop this thing. Patay kung patay (Even if it will cost us our lives). Even at the sacrifice of life, family, future, fortune. It was not only me that was involved. But my own family, my extended family. They’re also at risk,” he said.
Ramos then became defense secretary during the Cory Aquino administration. He ran for president in 1992 and won. – Rappler.com
While former First Lady Imelda Marcos popularized the terno, it has long been worn by Filipino women and evolved from earlier traditional Filipino dresses
STATELY. Former First Lady Imelda Marcos (right) walks with former US President Ronald Reagan (center) and former Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos (left) in 1982. File photo
MANILA, Philippines – Former first lady Imelda Marcos was well known for donning the terno and its famous butterfly sleeves during the ’70s, but the controversial “Iron Butterfly”, as she was then called, did not invent the traditional Filipiniana dress.
Questions on the terno’s origins cropped up on Thursday, January 26, after Miss Philippines Maxine Medina wrongly attributed the invention of the terno to Mrs Marcos, wife of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos.
In a recorded video shown during the preliminary round of the Miss Universe pageant, Medina said, “The terno was actually invented by our former first lady Imelda Marcos. She invented these butterfly sleeves and they used this as covering their face. It was called terno because it’s all one piece.”
Social media users quickly called out Medina for her wrong statement.
Marcos indeed made the terno famous, as it was her dress of choice worn to state events and functions when she was first lady.
But the terno, which evolved from earlier traditional Filipino dresses like the baro’t saya, the Traje de Mestiza, and the Balintawak, has long been worn by Filipino women years before.
According to Gino Gonzales and Mark Lewis Higgings, authors of the book Fashionable Filipinas: An Evolution of the Philippine National Dress in Photographs, 1860-1960, they found photographs dating back to 1910 showing women wearing a modern version of the terno without the pañuelo, or the long folded scarf dropping down from the chest.
Matching
The meaning of the word “terno” was also different back then.
The word “terno” means “matching,” and was used in the 1920s to refer to a matching set of camisa, pañuelo, and saya.
“Terno was a reference word that they used if they wanted it to match – the design, burda, etc were all matching. It didn’t refer to a single dress until about the 1940s,” Higgins said.
For a time, the association of the terno with Marcos prompted future administrations to shun the dress and to prefer the kimona and Maria Clara instead.
“She was so closely associated with the terno that the following administration obviously didn’t help by sort of condemning it and wearing the kimona, which is basically a baro’t saya with no sleeves. It’s much easier to make,” Higgins said in a 2016 interview with CNN Philippines.
Designer
One of the most well known designers of the terno was Ramon Valera, National Artist for Fashion Design. He was credited for giving the country “its visual icon to the world” via the terno.
“In the early 40s, Valera produced a single piece of clothing from a four-piece ensemble consisting of a blouse, skirt, overskirt, and long scarf. He unified the components of the baro’t saya into a single dress with exaggerated bell sleeves, cinched at the waist, grazing the ankle, and zipped up at the back,” the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) said in a description of Valera on its website.
“Valera constructed the terno’s butterfly sleeves, giving them a solid, built-in but hidden support. To the world, the butterfly sleeves became the terno’s defining feature,” it added.
But Gonzales and Higgins said that crediting the invention of the terno and the removal of the pañuelo to Valera was a misconception.
“No one person invented it. It was a collective effort. The removal of the pañuelo, which is usually attributed to Valera, happened way, way before [he removed it]. Women have been trying to remove it way before,” Gonzales said in a 2015 interview with the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
Today, the terno is the dress of choice in formal occasions requiring Filipinana dress, such as the annual State of the Nation Address. – Rappler.com
(UPDATED) The former first lady is accused of creating private foundations in Switzerland from 1978 to 1984 when she was governor of Metro Manila
GRAFT. Former first lady Imelda Marcos, shown here attending a political rally for her son Ferdinand Jr in 2016, faces 10 counts of graft filed 25 years ago. File photo by Rob Reyes/Rappler
MANILA, Philippines (UPDATED)– Ilocos Norte 2nd District Representative Imelda Marcos did not attend her last day of trial for a 25-year-old graft case before the Sandiganbayan, which has now been postponed to February 16.
The 5th Division on Tuesday, January 17, reset the trial because the defense failed to present their last evidence, which includes a testimony from deceased former judge Cesario del Rosario.
The 10 counts of graft filed in 1991 against Marcos stemmed from allegations that she created private foundations in Switzerland from 1978 to 1984 while she was governor of Metro Manila.
The former first lady also allegedly held financial interests in several private enterprises, a violation of Republic Act 3019 or the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act.
Assistant Special Prosecutor Rey Quilala told reporters that the evidence from the defense team consist of documents dating back to the 1990s.
One is a copy of Del Rosario’s testimony when the case was still with the Manila Regional Trial Court.
Another is an internal memorandum between Del Rosario, then assistant solicitor general, and Supreme Court Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio, then the chief presidential legal counsel of president Fidel Ramos.
The memo is said to be Del Rosario’s briefer to Carpio, as the latter, after being appointed by Ramos in 1992, asked the former for an update on cases against the Marcoses.
Neither the former first lady nor her lawyers attended the hearing.
Quilala told reporters they will seek a formal order so the case could proceed for judgment. The prosecution had rested its case in 2015.
The private foundations that Marcos allegedly formed are considered among her and her family’s hidden assets in Switzerland.
The government has since been able to identify $658 million worth of Marcos Swiss deposits. Documents which were used by the government to track down these deposits are used in related cases, such as this 1991 graft case.
The Sandiganbayan Special 1st Division is also handling another corruption claim against the former first lady, stemming from appeals from the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) and the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) to declare $24 million worth of art collections “unlawfully acquired.” (READ: Recovering Marcos’ ill-gotten wealth: After 30 years, what?) – Rappler.com
On December 7, 1972, a man wielding a bolo attempted to stab former first lady Imelda Marcos
FAILED ATTEMPT. In 1972, Carlito Dimahilig attempted to stab former First Lady Imelda Marcos. Youtube video screengrab
MANILA, Philippines – December 7, 2016 marks the 44th year since an assassination attempt was made on former first lady Imelda Marcos during an open-air event at Nayong Pilipino in Pasay City.
On December 7, 1972, Carlito Dimahilig, a geodetic engineer, attempted to kill Marcos during an awarding ceremony of her National Beautification and Cleanliness Contest. It was witnessed by Filipinos as it was aired over national television.
As the awardees went up the stage and was received by the former first lady, Dimahilig drew his bolo knife and launched himself at her to stab her in the chest.
Marcos was able to defend herself by covering her chest with both arms and throwing herself down on the floor.
“When this man was hitting me with his bolo, I looked around, I said, ‘I wonder who he is about to kill?’ Little did I know that he was going to me,” Marcos later said of the incident.
She also recalled wondering why her assassin opted to use an “ugly” weapon.
“If there’s somebody who’s going to kill me, why do they have to be, why is it to be a bolo that is so ugly? I wish they put some kind of yellow ribbon, or some kind of a nice thing. Why such an ugly instrument?” Marcos said.
Dimahilig kept swinging the weapon, wounding several people surrounding Marcos. Security rushed in to help the former first lady, later shooting Dimahilig until he was killed.
Marcos sustained wounds on both her arms and hands, requiring a total of 75 stitches, and was immediately rushed to Makati Medical Center via helicopter. Then-president Ferdinand Marcos joined her at the hospital and was reported to be “shocked beyond words at the news.”
The morning after the incident, however, Mrs Marcos was already gracing television cameras wearing a “silky, frilly hospital gown.” The rest of the week following the assassination attempt, the clip of the attempt was “replayed on loop on Filipino television.”
‘Second lease on life’
The former First Lady considered her survival as her “second lease on life.”
Writing in her book, Imelda: Steel Butterfly of the Philippines, American reporter Katherine Ellison said that Mrs Marcos’ survival awakened in her a “sense of mission to a Nietzschean extreme.”
She kept her arm in an elegant gold-chain sling even when no longer needed, and claimed that she never recovered the full use of her right hand years after the incident.
But the incident was marred with speculations behind its motive.
Some believed that the assassination attempt was staged to win the people’s sympathy, as it was the year when Martial Law was declared.
But for former president Marcos, the assassination attempt was planned as part of a right-wing conspiracy to kill both him and the former first lady.
Nineteen activists who opposed ex-President Ferdinand Marcos’ dictatorship will be honored by the Bantayog ng mga Bayani Foundation on Wednesday, the foundation announced.
Among those to be recognized in the Annual Honoring of Martyrs and Heroes in the People’s Resistance to Dictatorship 1965-1986 is former Senate President Jovito Salonga, founding chairman of Bantayog, who died just last March.
Salonga was among those injured during the 1971 Plaza Miranda bombing in Quiapo, Manila.
Salonga and his law firm partners also came to the defense of several detainees, including Ninoy Aquino, whom the Marcos regime arrested during the first days of Martial Law.
Also to be recognized on Wednesday is renowned theater and film director, and activist Benjamin “Behn” Cervantes, a political detainee during Martial Law.
Former President Marcos ordered Cervantes’ arrest because of his 1976 film titled “Sakada”, which criticized the country’s feudal power structure.
Former Miss Philippines Margarita “Maita” Gomez is also among the honorees. Gomez went underground and joined revolutionary fighters despite coming from a family of Central Luzon landlords.
Journalists Lourdes “Chit” Estella-Simbulan and Leticia Jimenez-Magsanoc will also be honored by the foundation for their work during the Marcos dictatorship.
Simbulan first opposed the Marcos dictatorship as a campus journalist at the University of the Philippines’ Philippine Collegian. She went on to work as a professional media practitioner.
Magsanoc, meanwhile, was forced to resign as an editor for Panorama, the country’s largest circulation magazine during the late 70s, after writing an anti-Marcos article.
Outrage from her fellow journalists followed Magsanoc’s resignation, which sparked criticism of the late dictator’s efforts to curtail press freedom.
Other honorees in the annual rites include Marciano Anastacio Jr., Eduardo Q. Aquino, Fortunato Camus, Hernando Cortez, Edgardo M. Dojillo, Manuel Dorotan, Ricardo Filio, Joel Jose, Bishop Julio X. Labayen, Romulo Peralta, Jose Aquilino Tangente, Simplicio Villados, Danilo P. Vizmanos, and Antonio “Tony” Zumel.
Education Sec. Leonor Briones will be the guest of honor and speaker at the ceremony, which will be held at the Bantayog ng mga Bayani Center in Quezon City.
The Bantayog Museum will also display a portion of the bullet-scarred door form Kalinga hero Macliing Dulag’s house, which is on loan from the University of the Philippines-Baguio.
Government troops fired on the door while pursuing Dulag in 1980, because of his leadership of the Cordillera tribes opposing the Marcos regime.
The youth need not experience the abuses of Martial Law to understand it. Students say they can research and read about one of the darkest periods in Philippine history.
Photo by Joel Liporada/Rappler
MANILA, Philippines – They answered for a significant number among the thousands who attended the grand indignation rally against the burial of former president Ferdinand Marcos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani on Friday, November 25.
Students from various universities in Metro Manila marched to Luneta with other sectors, saying they share with the older generation the fight to seek justice for Martial Law victims and to make sure one of the darkest periods in the country’s history is not repeated.
“It’s important for us to be here, us youth, because our fight is not separate from the fight of other sectors,” said Jann Merlin, a student council member from the University of the Philippines.
“Studying history does not only involve remembering the personalities but also understanding why problems in our society exist,” she added.
Political science student Enric Alcaide from Adamson University said this is about today’s youth continuing the fight that the older activists fought.
“We are the future of the nation, so we need to fight for what our predecessors fought for. We need to continue the fight,” he said.
To young people: Research, read
Photo by Rob Reyes/Rappler
Alcaide, who learned of atrocities during Martial Law from his grandmother, said supporters of former President Marcos should not tell victims of those state-sanctioned abuses to just “move on.”
It’s easy for these pro-Marcos people to say that, he said, because they did not share the pain of the victims’ families.
“There are those who still can’t find their family members or do not have answers to where their relatives are. It’s painful for them, so they can’t just say move on,” Alcaide said.
Meanwhile, Lyceum University of the Philippines student Bettina Oriondo said she felt for the victims of Martial Law because she read a lot about their stories.
“Pro-Marcos people want us to move on, but we can’t. I am not a Martial Law victim, but if you listen to their first-hand stories, you’ll cry. I was not among them, but I read, I researched. That’s why I will not let this just slide,” said Oriondo.
Janelle Melchor, a student from the Manila Science High School, urged her fellow young people to go beyond what they see on social media.
“Let us not just believe what we see on social media because Marcos is not a hero. if they can, just research and they will know the truth that a plunderer is not a hero,” she said.
Thousands of protesters
Students from UP in Diliman and Manila, the University of Santo Tomas, De La Salle University, and St Scholastica’s College participated in the rally organized by the Campaign Against the Return of the Marcoses in Malacañang or Carmma.
Non-organized students – from schools such as Manila Science High School, Adamson University, and Lyceum University of the Philippines – also joined the rally.
Anywhere from 5,000 to 8,000 protesters from different sectors – women, farmers, laborers, professionals, and students – participated in the Luneta rally, which was held simultaneously with smaller protest activities in key cities across the country.
The Friday rally in Luneta was the first of two major rallies denouncing President Duterte’s decision to allow Marcos’ burial at the Heroes’ Cemetery.
Another rally is set for Wednesday, November 30, at the People Power Monument. It is organized by the Coalition Against Marcos Burial at the Libingan ng mga Bayani.
