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Official Gazette of the Republic of the Philippines

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IMPLEMENTING RULES AND REGULATIONS
OF REPUBLIC ACT NO. 10368
"AN ACT PROVIDING FOR REPARATION AND RECOGNITION
OF VICTIMS OF HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS
DURING THE MARCOS REGIME, DOCUMENTATION OF SAID VIOLATIONS,
APPROPRIATING FUNDS THEREFOR AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES"
RULE I
Preliminary Provisions
Section 1. Title. These Rules and Regulations shall be known and cited as "The Rules and Regulations Implementing the Human Rights Victims Reparation and Recognition Act of 2013."(1)

Section 2. Purpose. These Rules and Regulations are hereby promulgated to ensure:

a) transparency in the processing of the claims;

b) a procedure that allows any concerned party to oppose an application or claim on the ground that it is fraudulent, fictitious or spurious and gives that party the opportunity to question the same and to present evidence in support thereof; and,

c) a speedy and expeditious procedure respecting the parties' fundamental rights.(28)

Section 3. Declaration of Policy. Consistent with Sections 2 and 11 of Article II, and Section 12 of Article III of the 1987 Constitution of the Republic of the Philippines, and adhering to international human rights law and conventions, it is the declared policy of the State to:

a) Recognize the heroism and sacrifices of all Filipinos who were victims of summary execution, torture, enforced or involuntary disappearance and other gross human rights violations committed during the regime of former President Ferdinand E. Marcos covering the period from September 21, 1972 to February 25, 1986 and restore the victims' honor and dignity;

b) Acknowledge its moral and legal obligation to recognize and/or provide reparation to the said victims and/or their families for the deaths, injuries, sufferings, deprivations and damages they suffered under the Marcos regime;

c) Acknowledge the sufferings and damages inflicted upon persons whose properties or businesses were forcibly taken over, sequestered or used, or those whose professions were damaged and/or impaired, or those whose freedom of movement was restricted, and/or such other victims of the violations of the Bill of Rights. (2)

Section 4. Construction. These Rules and Regulations shall be liberally construed to promote the intent, purposes and objectives of the Human Rights Victims Reparation and Recognition Act of 2013 as expressed in the preceding section. Any doubt in the implementation and interpretation hereof shall be resolved in favor of facilitating the reparation and recognition of bona fide human rights violations victims or their legal heirs. (n)
RULE II
Definition of Terms
Section 1. Definition of Terms. The following terms as used in these Rules and Regulations shall mean:

a) "Act" refers to Republic Act No. 10368, otherwise known as "Human Rights Victims Reparation and Recognition Act of 2013."

b) "IRR" refers to this Implementing Rules and Regulations.

c) "Board", when used in this IRR, refers to the Human Rights Victims' Claims Board or the Human Rights Violations Victims' Claims Board.

d) "Human rights violation"(HRV) refers to any act or omission committed during the period from September 21, 1972 to February 25, 1986 by persons acting in an official capacity and/or agents of the State, but shall not be limited to the following:

(1) Any search, arrest and/or detention without a valid search warrant or warrant of arrest issued by a civilian court of law, including any warrantless arrest or detention carried out pursuant to the declaration of Martial Law by former President Ferdinand E. Marcos as well as any arrest, detention or deprivation of liberty carried out during the covered period on the basis of an "Arrest, Search and Seizure Order (ASSO)", a "Presidential Commitment Order (PCO)" or a "Preventive Detention Action (PDA)" and such other similar executive issuances as defined by decrees of former President Ferdinand E. Marcos, or in any manner that the arrest, detention or deprivation of liberty was effected;

(1.1)" Detention" refers to the act of taking a person into custody against his will by persons acting in an official capacity and/or agents of the State, as is commonly understood under pertinent penal laws;

(2) The infliction by a person acting in an official capacity and/or an agent of the State of physical injury, torture, killing, or violation of other human rights, of any person exercising civil or political rights, including but not limited to the freedom of speech, assembly or organization; and/or the right to petition the government for redress of grievances, even if such violation took place during or in the course of what the authorities at the time deemed an illegal assembly or demonstration: Provided, That torture in any form or under any circumstance shall be considered a human rights violation;

(2.1) "Torture", as defined by Republic Act No. 9745,otherwise known as the "Anti-Torture Act of 2009".refers to an act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him/her or a third person information or a confession; punishing him/her for an act he/she or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed; or intimidating or coercing him/her or a third person; or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a person in authority or agent of a person in authority;

(3) Any enforced or involuntary disappearance, as defined in Republic Act No. 1035[3], otherwise known as the "Anti-Enforced or Involuntary Disappearance Act of 2012" refers to the arrest, detention, abduction or any other form of deprivation of liberty committed by agents of the State or by persons or groups of persons acting with the authorization, support or acquiescence of the State, followed by a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty or by concealment of the fate or whereabouts of the disappeared person, which places such person outside the protection of the law;

(4) Any force or intimidation causing the involuntary exile of a person from the Philippines;

(5) Any act of force, intimidation or deceit causing unjust or illegal takeover of a business, confiscation of property, detention of owner/s and or their families, deprivation of livelihood of a person by agents of the State, including those caused by Ferdinand E. Marcos, his spouse Imelda R. Marcos, their immediate relatives by consanguinity or affinity, as well as those persons considered as among their close relatives, associates, cronies and subordinates under Executive Order No. 1, issued on February 28, 1986 by then President Corazon C. Aquino in the exercise of her legislative powers under the Freedom Constitution;

(6) Any act or series of acts causing, committing and/or conducting the following:

(6.1) Kidnapping or otherwise exploiting children of persons suspected of committing acts against the Marcos regime;

(6.2) Committing sexual offenses against human rights violations victims who are detained and/or in the course of conducting military and/or police operations. Sexual offenses shall refer to unlawful acts constituting either sexual harassment or sexual offenses not amounting to torture; and, (n)

(6.3) Other violations and/or abuses similar or analogous to the above, including those recognized by international law.

e) "Human Rights Violations Victim (HRVV) "refers to a person whose human rights were violated by persons acting in an official capacity and/or agents of the State as defined herein. In order to qualify for reparation under this Act, the human rights violation must have been committed during the period from September 21, 1972 to February 25, 1986: Provided, however, That victims of human rights violations, which were committed one (1) month before September 21, 1972 and one (1) month after February 25, 1986, shall be entitled to reparation under the Act if they can establish that the violation was committed:

(1) By agents of the State and/or persons acting in an official capacity as defined hereunder;

(2) For the purpose of preserving, maintaining, supporting or promoting the said regime; or

(3) To conceal abuses during the Marcos regime and/or the effects of Martial Law.

f) "Persons Acting in an Official Capacity and/or Agents of the State" refer to:

(1) Any member of the former Philippine Constabulary (PC), the former Integrated National Police (INP), the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the Civilian Home Defense Force (CHDF) from September 21, 1972 to February 25, 1986 as well as any civilian agent attached thereto; and any member of a paramilitary group even if one is not organically part of the PC, the INP, the AFP or the CHDF so long as it is shown that the group was organized, funded, supplied with equipment, facilities and/or resources, and/or indoctrinated, controlled and/or supervised by any person acting in an official capacity and/or agent of the State as herein defined;

(2) Any member of the civil service, including persons who held elective or appointive public office at any time from September 21, 1972 to February 25, 1986;

(3) Persons referred to in Section 2(a) of Executive Order No. 1, creating the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG), issued on February 28, 1986 and related laws by then President Corazon C. Aquino in the exercise of her legislative powers under the Freedom Constitution, including former President Ferdinand E. Marcos, spouse Imelda R. Marcos, their immediate relatives by consanguinity or affinity, as well as their close relatives, associates, cronies and subordinates; and,

(4) Any person or group/s of persons acting with the authorization, support or acquiescence of the State during the Marcos regime.(3)

g) "Reparation", under the Act, refers to the obligation of the State to restore the rights and uphold the dignity of the victims, which is part of the right to an effective remedy. Reparation shall be both monetary and non-monetary. (n)

h) "Recognition" refers to the acknowledgment by the State of the violations committed against persons who are victims of human rights violations as described herein. This recognition shall be manifested by enshrining the name of the said HRVV in the Roll of Human Rights Violations Victims prepared by the Board pursuant to its mandated powers and functions.(n, 26)

i) "Motu Proprio Recognition" refers to the action of the Board in taking judicial notice or cognizance of the legitimacy of individual claims of HRVV as defined herein and granting such persons recognition as such and enshrined in the Roll of Human Rights Violations Victims as provided hereafter.(18, 26)

j) "Memorialization" refers to the preservation of the memory of the human rights violations victims, objects, events and lessons learned during the Marcos regime. This is part of the inherent obligation of the State to acknowledge the wrongs committed in the past, to recognize the heroism and sacrifices of all Filipinos who were victims of gross human rights violations during Martial Law, and to prevent the recurrence of similar abuses.

k) "Memorial Commission" refers to the Human Rights Violations Victims' Memorial Commission established under the Act.
RULE III
Human Rights Victims' Claims Board
Section 1. Powers and Functions of the Board. The Board as an independent and quasi-judicial body shall have sole and original jurisdiction to determine the eligibility of claims, extent of human rights violations and award of reparations. It shall have the following powers and functions:

a) Receive, evaluate, process, and investigate applications for claims;

b) Issue subpoenae ad testificandum and duces tecum;

c) Conduct independent administrative proceedings and resolve disputes over claims;

d) Approve with finality and on appeal all eligible claims;

e) Prepare the Roll of Human Rights Violations Victims;

f) Deputize appropriate government agencies to assist it in order to effectively perform its functions;

g) Promulgate such rules as may be necessary to carry out the purposes of the Act including rules of procedure in the conduct of its proceedings, with the Revised Rules of Court of the Philippines having suppletory application;

h) Exercise administrative control and supervision over its Secretariat and Division Secretariats, including appointment, hiring and dismissal of its regular personnel;

i) At its discretion, consult the human rights organizations mentioned in Section 9 of the Act;

j) Hire additional personnel or enter into contracts for provision of services of counselors, psychologists, social workers and public education specialists, among others, and additional legal or paralegal services to augment the services of the Board and the Secretariat; and,

k) Perform such other duties, functions and responsibilities as may be necessary to effectively attain the objectives of the Act. (10, 13)

Section 2. Motu Proprio Recognition. The Board may take judicial notice motu proprio of individual persons who suffered human rights violations as defined herein and grant such persons recognition as HRVVs and enshrined in the Roll of Human Rights Violations Victims. (18)

Section 3. Roll of Human Rights Violations Victims. Persons who are HRVVs, regardless of whether they opt to seek reparation or not, shall be given recognition by enshrining their names in a Roll of Human Rights Violations Victims to be prepared by the Board.(26)

Section 4. Composition and Qualifications. The Human Rights Victims' Claims Board shall be composed of nine (9) members who shall possess the following qualifications:

a) Must be of known probity, competence and integrity;

b) Must have a deep and thorough understanding and knowledge of human rights and involvement in efforts against human rights violations committed during the regime of former President Ferdinand E. Marcos;

c) At least three (3) of them must be members of the Philippine Bar who have been engaged in the practice of law for at least ten (10) years; and

d) Must have a clear and adequate understanding and commitment to human rights protection, promotion and advocacy.

The Human Rights Victims' Claims Board shall be attached to, but shall not be under, the Commission on Human Rights (CHR). (8)

Section 5. Divisions. The Board shall be composed of three (3) divisions which shall function simultaneously and independently of each other in the resolution of claims for reparation and/or recognition. Each division shall be composed of one (1) Chairperson, who shall be a member of the Philippine Bar, and two (2) members, to be appointed by the Board en banc. (11)

Section 6. Rank, Salary, Emoluments and Allowances of the Chairman and Members of the Board. The Chairperson and the Members of the Board shall enjoy the rank, receive the same salary, emoluments and allowances equivalent to a Presiding Justice and Associate Justice of the Court of Appeals respectively, which shall not be decreased during their term of office. The emoluments shall include fees, compensation, perquisites, pensions and retirement benefits, which shall be given in accordance with RA 6758 and RA 910, as amended. (n, 12)

Section 7. Operating Budget of the Board. The operating budget of the Board shall be funded from the ten billion peso (P10,000,000,000.00) fund, with ten million pesos (P10,000,000.00) as its initial operating budget: Provided, That it shall not exceed fifty million pesos (P50,000,000.00) a year. (14)

Section 1. Functions. The Board shall be assisted by a Secretariat which shall have the following functions.

a) Receive, evaluate, process and investigate applications for claims under the Act;

b) Recommend to the Board the approval of applications for claims;

c) Assist the Board in technical functions; and

d) Perform other duties that may be assigned by the Board. (13)

Section 2. Composition. The Chairperson of the Board shall appoint a Board Secretary who shall head the Secretariat for the duration of the existence of the Board. There shall be a Technical Staff Head assisted by five (5) Legal Officers and three (3) Paralegal Officers, an Administrative Staff Head assisted by three (3) Administrative Support Staff and other additional personnel as may be necessary.

The Board may hire additional contractual employees or contract service providers, such as counselors, psychologists, social workers and public education specialists, among others, to augment the services of the Secretariat, provided that the maximum contract amount per year shall not exceed more than fifteen percent (15%) of the total annual operating budget of the Board.(13)

Section 3. Processing of Claims. The Secretariat shall ensure the completeness of the claims application in accordance with Section 6 of Rule III, evaluate the application for substantive compliance, prepare a reasoned recommendation and submit to the respective Division for determination of eligibility. The Secretariat may also raise legal and other issues to the Board, through the Divisions, that may arise in the course of the evaluation of the applications and implementation of the Act. (n)
RULE V
Claims, Reparations and Recognition
Section 1. Period of Filing. The Board, in accordance with Section 22 of the Act, has set the period of the commencement of filing of applications on May 12, 2014 and termination of the same on November 10, 2014, and has caused the publication thereof once a week for three (3) consecutive weeks in two (2) national newspapers of general circulation. (n, 22)

Section 2. Waiver of Claims. Any claimant who fails to file an application within the period fixed in the preceding section is deemed to have waived the right to file the same. (n, 23)

Section 3. Place of Filing. Applications must be personally filed with the Secretariat of the Board at its main office or at designated on-site/satellite intake offices. (n)

Section 4. No fees. There will be no fees charged for the filing of claims application or appeal. Costs for photocopying or scanning or other similar costs incurred in the filing of the application or appeal shall be borne by the applicant or appellant. (n)

Section 5. Substantial Evidence. Substantial evidence is necessary to establish the eligibility of any claim. Substantial evidence is that level of evidence which a reasonable mind might accept as adequate to justify the conclusion. Evidence submitted by the applicants will be validated and verified with appropriate government records and database and other relevant and material sources, and allegations investigated prior to the resolution of the claim. (n)

Section 6. Summary Procedure; Prohibited Pleadings. All proceedings of the Board and its Divisions are summary in nature and shall be guided by the Revised Rules on Summary Procedure. It shall adopt the rule on prohibited pleadings and motions as may be applicable. The only pleadings allowed to be filed are the claims application together with the necessary attachments, opposition to the eligibility of the claim, and appeal together with the Memorandum. (n)

Section 7. Eligibility of Claims. The applicant must qualify to be an HRVV as provided under the Act, show to the satisfaction of the Board, through the Divisions, the eligibility of the claim and provide proof that:

a) The applicant is a legitimate claimant under Sections 8 and 9 of this Rule, including those seeking recognition;

b) The human rights violation is one of those enumerated under Rule II, Section 1(d),committed by a person in an official capacity and/or State agent in accordancewith Section 10 of this Rule during the periods identified.(n. 4)

Section 8. Application. A Claims Application may be filed by the following:

a) A person who is an HRVV as defined in Rule II, Section 1(e);

b) Claimants who are conclusively presumed to be a HRVV under section 9 of this Rule; (17)

c) Legal heir/s, as determined by the provisions of Articles 960 to 1010 of the Civil Code of the Philippines, or authorized representative of HRVVs who are deceased, incapacitated, or involuntarily disappeared.(4, 23)

The applicant shall submit the following to support eligibility as a claimant:

a) Claims Application Form;

b) Detailed sworn statement of the human rights violation;

c) Proof of filiation and relationship issued by the National Statistics Office (NSO) or Office of the Local Civil Registrar. In the absence thereof, affidavits of at least two (2) disinterested individuals;d) In case the HRVV is physically incapacitated to file the application personally, a notarized authorization showing proof of identity of the authorized representative and his/her bona fide relationship with the victim;

e) In case of mental or psychological disability of the HRVV, proof of filiation and relationship of the nearest next of kin in accordance with the Civil Code provisions on succession issued by the NSO or Office of the Local Civil Registrar.(n, 21, 23)

Section 9. Conclusive Presumption as HRVV. The claimants in the class suit and direct action plaintiffs in the Human Rights Litigation Against the Estate of Ferdinand E. Marcos (MDL No. 840, CA No. 88-0390) in the US Federal District Court of Honolulu, Hawaii, wherein a favorable judgment has been rendered, shall be extended the conclusive presumption that they are HRVVs: Provided, That the HRVVs recognized by the Bantayog Ng Mga Bayani Foundation shall also be accorded the same conclusive presumption: Provided, further, That nothing herein shall be construed to deprive the Board of its original jurisdiction and its inherent power to determine the extent of the human rights violations and the corresponding reparation and/or recognition that may be granted. (17)

Section 10. Human Rights Violation (HRV).The human rights violation, as defined under Rule II, Section 1(d), must be shown to have been committed during the period from September 21, 1972 to February 25, 1986: Provided, however, That victims of human rights violations, which were committed one (1) month before September 21, 1972 and one (1) month after February 25, 1986, shall be entitled to reparation under the Act if they can establish that the violation was committed:

a) By agents of the State and/or persons acting in an official capacity as defined hereunder;

b) For the purpose of preserving, maintaining, supporting or promoting the said regime; or

c) To conceal abuses during the Marcos regime and/or the effects of Martial Law. (3)

To prove the HRV, the applicant shall submit one or more of the following:

a) By agents of the State and/or persons acting in an official capacity as defined hereunder;

b) For the purpose of preserving, maintaining, supporting or promoting the said regime; or

c) To conceal abuses during the Marcos regime and/or the effects of Martial Law. (3)

To prove the HRV, the applicant shall submit one or more of the following:

a) NSO-issued or local death certificate;

b) Warrant of arrest, seizure orders (PDA, PCO, ASSO), mission order and other similar documents;

c) Certification by custodial government agencies on the fact of detention, carpeta, police blotter, NBI files, release papers and other similar documents;

d) Doctor's affidavit, medico-legal, autopsy or pathology certificate or report, and other similar documents;

e) Declassified documents from the Department of National Defense and other government agencies;

f) Court records;

g) Original or duly certified lawyer's records;

h) Photographs with affidavit of proper authentication;

i) Sworn statement of two (2) co-detainees or two (2) persons who have personal knowledge of the circumstances surrounding the HRV;

j) Secondary sources of information from reliable sources may be presented such aschurch/non-government organization report, books documenting HRVs,newsclippings or other similar documents;

k) Other documents and evidence attesting the occurrence of the incident and violationsor that may be required for the award of any reparation. (n)

Section 11. Resolution of Claims. Any issue, claim or appeal before the Board or its Divisions shall be decided by a majority vote of the members thereof, within 15 calendar days from the time it is deemed submitted for resolution. (n, 11)

Section 12. Determination of Award of Monetary Reparation. The Board, through the Divisions, shall proceed to determine the award due each eligible claimant classified under Sections 16 and 17 of the Act. A point system shall guide the determination of the award in the following manner:

a) Victims who were killed or who were involuntarily disappeared and are still missing shall be given ten (10) points:

b) Victims who were tortured and/or raped or sexually abused shall be given six (6) to nine (9) points;

c) Victims who were detained shall be given three (3) to five (5) points; and

d) Victims whose rights were violated under Section 3, paragraph (b), nos. (4), (5) and (6) under RA 10368 shall be given one (1) to two (2) points.

The Board shall exercise its powers with due discretion in the determination of points for each victim, which shall be based on the type of violation committed against the HRVV, frequency and duration of the violation, and severity of harm and its consequences. In each category, HRVVs who had suffered more would receive more points. In instances where a victim is classified in more than one category, s/he shall be awarded the points in the higher category.

The Board, through the Divisions, shall award only one (1) valid claim, which corresponds to the category obtaining the highest number of points, for each HRVV.

After the final determination of the awards for all claimants, the Board shall then compute the final monetary value of one's award that is equivalent to the numerical value of one point multiplied by the number of points that a claimant is entitled to, as previously determined by the Board. (19)

Section 13. Amount of Reparation. The amount of reparation under this Act shall be in proportion to the gravity of the human rights violation committed on the HRVV and in accordance with the number of points assigned to the individual under the preceding section of this Rule. (6)

Section 14. Finality of Resolution. After the determination by the Divisions, the Board en banc shall approve the list of all eligible claimants and direct its publication in at least two (2) newspapers of general circulation once a week for three (3) consecutive weeks.

a) Opposition to any of the new eligible claimants shall be filed within fifteen (15) calendar days from the date of last publication, on the following grounds:

(1) The new claimant is not legitimate under section 8 of this Rule;

(2) The human rights violation is not one of those enumerated under Rule II, Section1(d),and Section 10 of this Rule;

(3) The claim is fraudulent, fictitious or spurious.

The Board shall remand to the concerned Division the adjudication on the opposition, where evidence and issues shall be presented and passed upon. The Division may summarily dismiss an opposition found to be frivolous. An applicant who is not included in the list of new eligible claimants is entitled to appeal to the Board, through the Division, in accordance with the immediately succeeding section.

b) However, in the case of conclusively presumed claimants, any opposition may be filed within 10 days as an appeal to the Board en banc based on the above-mentioned grounds and under the succeeding section. (n, 23)

Section 15. Appeal to the Board. An appeal from the Resolution of the Division can be filed by any aggrieved claimant or oppositor, through a Notice of Appeal with the Secretariat, within ten (10) calendar days from receipt of the Resolution, on any of the following grounds:

a) That the Resolution is not supported by substantial evidence; and,

b) That the claimant or opposing party has been deprived, through no fault attributable to him/her, of presenting his/her evidence in support of his/her claim or opposition during the Division proceedings.

The appellant shall submit a Memorandum appended to the Notice of Appeal, in at least nine (9) copies, citing the grounds why the resolution of the Division should be vacated, set aside or modified. Failure to submit said Memorandum shall be deemed non-perfection of the appeal.

The decision on the appeal by the Board en banc is final and executory.

The Board en banc shall resolve all pending appeals within sixty (60) calendar days before it becomes functus officio. (n, 19, 24)

Section 16. Effectivity of Award of Monetary Compensation. Within thirty (30) days after the Board has approved with finality each eligible claim pending before it and after due publication of such legitimateclaim, the award of monetary compensation shall take effect. (19)

Section 17. Disbursement of Monetary Reparation. No special power of attorney shall be recognized in the actual disbursement of the award, and only the victim or successor(s)-in-interest shall be entitled to personally receive said reparation from the Board, unless the victim involved is shown to be incapacitated to the satisfaction of the Board. Monetary reparation shall be free of tax.

The reparation received under the Act shall be without prejudice to the receipt of any other sum by the HRVV from any other person or entity in any case involving violations of human rights. (4)

Section 18. Non-monetary Reparation. The Department of Health (DOH), the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), the Department of Education (DepED), the Commission on Higher Education (CHED), the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA), and such other government agencies shall render the necessary services as nonmonetary reparation for HRVVs and/or their families, as may be determined by the Board pursuant to the provisions of the Act. The amount necessary for this purpose shall be sourced from the budget of the agency concerned in the annual General Appropriations Act (GAA). (5)

Section 19. Recognition. HRVVs, whether they opt to seek reparation or not, shall be given recognition by enshrining their names in a Roll of Human Rights Violations Victims to be prepared by the Board.(26)

Section 20. Motu Proprio Recognition. The Board may take judicial notice motu proprio of individual persons who suffered human rights violations as defined herein and grant such persons recognition as HRVVs and enshrined in the Roll of Human Rights Violations Victims. (18)

Section 21. Confidentiality. Processing of the claims shall be transparent. In certain instances, the Board shall ensure confidentiality of information primarily to protect the HRVV, unless s/he gives prior informed consent. (n)

Section 22. Assistance from other government agencies. Government agencies in possession or custody of documents such as but not limited to, court records, clearances, dossiers, arrest and seizure orders, detention logs, police blotters, and other documents, that may assist claimants in the processing of applications for monetary and non-monetary reparations shall provide necessary assistance to enable claimants to obtain said documents necessary to prove their claims under the Act. The Board may also seek assistance or deputize appropriate government agencies for purposes of validation, verification and investigation of any claim, opposition or appeal brought before it, ensuring effective performance of its functions, and implementation of the objectives of the Act.(n, 10)

Section 23. Assistance from civil society and media. The Board may seek the assistance of civil society and media organizations to assist claimants in obtaining materials, documents and other files that will facilitate in proving their claims. These materials, documents and other files include newsclippings, microfilms, still photos, audio, video footages and other documents. (n)

Section 24. Funding Source. The principal source of funds for the reparation of HRVVs and implementation of the Act shall be the amount of ten billion pesos (P10,000,000,000.00) plus the accrued interest, which form part of the funds transferred to the government of the Republic of the Philippines by virtue of the December 10, 1997 Order of the Swiss Federal Supreme Court, adjudged by the Supreme Court of the Philippines as final and executory in Republic vs. Sandiganbayan on July 15, 2003 (G.R. No. 152154) as Marcos ill-gotten wealth and forfeited in favor of the Republic of the Philippines. (7)

Section 25. Proper Disposition of Funds. The Board shall ensure that funds appropriated or those which may become available as reparation for HRVVs are properly disbursed in accordance with the policies stated by Congress and relevant government rules, regulations and accounting procedures. (15)
RULE VI
Penalties
Section 1. Applicability of the Revised Penal Code. Any claimant who is found by the Board, after due hearing, to have filed a fraudulent claim, shall be referred to the appropriate office for prosecution. If convicted, he shall suffer the imprisonment of eight (8) to ten (10) years, shall be disqualified from public office and employment and shall be deprived of the right to vote and be voted for in any national or local election, even after the service of sentence unless granted absolute pardon.(25)

Section 2. Accountability. Any member of the Board, its Secretariat, public officer, employee of an agency or any private individual mandated to implement this Act, who shall misuse, embezzle or misappropriate the funds for the reparation of HRVVs or who shall commit fraud in the processing of documents and claims of HRVVs, or shall conspire with any individual to commit the same, shall also be prosecuted.

Any member of the Board and its Secretariat, public officer, employee of an agency or any private individual mandated to implement this Act, who may have been found guilty of committing any or all of the prohibited acts stated in the preceding paragraph, or those acts punishable under the Revised Penal Code, shall be penalized under the pertinent provisions in the Code and relevant special penal laws. (25)
RULE VII
Memorialization
Section 1. Memorial/Museum/Library/Compendium. A Memorial/Museum/Library shall be established in honor and in memory of the victims of human rights violations, whose names are inscribed in the Roll of Human Rights Violations Victims prepared by the Board. A compendium of their sacrifices shall be prepared and may be readily viewed and accessed in the internet. The Roll may also be displayed in government agencies as may be designated by the Human Rights Violations Victims Memorial Commission created by the Act.(26)

The database prepared by the Board derived from the processing of claims shall be turned over to the Memorial Commission for archival purposes, and made accessible for the promotion of human rights to all government agencies and instrumentalities in order to prevent recurrence of similar abuses, encourage continuing reforms and contribute to ending impunity.(n)

Section 2. Education and Curriculum Development. The lessons learned from Martial Law atrocities and the lives and sacrifices of HRVVs shall be included in the basic and higher education curricula, as well as in continuing adult learning, prioritizing those most prone to commit human rights violations.(n, 27)

Section 3. Informed Consent. The Memorial Commission shall publish only those stories of HRVVs who have given prior informed consent.(n)

Section 4. Funding Source. The Memorial/Museum/Library/Compendium shall have an appropriation of at least five hundred million pesos (P500,000,000.00) from the accrued interest of the ten billion peso (P10,000,000,000.00) fund.(26)
RULE VIII
Human Rights Violations Victims' Memorial Commission
Section 1. Mandate, Powers and Functions of the Memorial Commission. The Memorial Commission, as created by the Act, shall be primarily responsible for the establishment, restoration, preservation and conservation of the Memorial/Museum/Library/Compendium. It shall also coordinate and collaborate with the Department of Education (DepED) and the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) to ensure that the lessons learned from Martial Law are taught in schools.

The Memorial Commission shall be attached to the CHR solely for budgetary and administrative purposes. (26, 27)

Section 2. Board of Trustees. The powers and functions of the Memorial Commission shall be assumed by a Board of Trustees, which shall be composed of the following: Chairperson of the CHR as Chairperson; Chairperson of the National Historical Commission of the Philippines as Co-Chairperson; and Chairpersons of the CHED and the National Commission on Culture and the Arts, the Secretary of the DepED and the Head of the University of the Philippines Diliman Main Library, as members.

The Board of Trustees has the authority to hire and appoint its officials and employees, including constituting its own Secretariat. It is likewise authorized to receive donations and grants for and in its behalf, and generate revenues for the benefit of the Memorial Commission. (n, 27)

Section 3. Operating Budget. The operating budget of the Commission shall be appropriated from the GAA. (27)

Section 1. Work period; Sunset Clause. The Board shall complete its work within two (2) years from the effectivity of this IRR. After such period, it shall become functus officio. (29)

Section 2. Effectivity Clause. These Implementing Rules and Regulations shall take effect fifteen (15) days after their complete publication in two (2) national newspapers of general circulation. (28)

Section 3. Separability Clause. If, for any reason, any section or provision of this IRR is declared unconstitutional or invalid, such other sections or provisions not affected thereby shall remain in full force and effect. (30)
Adopted this 24th day of April, 2014 at Quezon City, Philippines.
(Sgd.) LINA C. SARMIENTO
Chairperson

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official gazette of the republic of the philippines - the official gazette is the official journal of the republic of the philippines. edited at the office of the president of the philippines under commonwealth act no. 638

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Implementing Rules and Regulations of Republic Act No. 10368 | GOVPH

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IMPLEMENTING RULES AND REGULATIONS OF REPUBLIC ACT NO. 10368 "AN ACT PROVIDING FOR REPARATION AND RECOGNITION OF VICTIMS OF HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS DURING THE MARCOS REGIME, DOCUMENTATION OF SAID VIOLATIONS, APPROPRIATING FUNDS THEREFOR AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES" RULE I Preliminary Provisions Section 1. Title.

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The crowded malnutrition ward at Monteliban Hospital is where the lucky victims of government corruption, private greed and general apathy come to live or die.

''One of the great tragedies here is that people have become so accustomed to hunger that they don`t understand when a child is really sick,'' says Dr. Lourdes Espina, head of the hospital`s pediatrics wing.

At Monteliban Hospital, 641 children died in the first six months of this year. Only 93 of those deaths were attributed directly to ''malnutrition.''

Medical records supervisor Melecio C. Plaza says most of the other deaths were caused by complications from simple childhood diseases in malnourished patients.

Health officials and relief workers emphasize that the Monteliban death toll only hints at the extent of the problem in Negros. Nearly a dozen other hospitals and private clinics are treating starving children across the island. And there probably are thousands of children whose deaths never are reported.

The children of Negros are starving because the government refused to do anything about a problem that became obvious more than a decade ago.

Negros is the Philippines` sugar cane capital. Nearly 60 percent of the country`s cane comes from this fish-shaped island and more cultivated land is turned over to producing sugar cane than all other crops combined.

That reliance on one crop served Negros well for decades, particularly in the 1960s and early `70s when the U.S. was importing almost every bag of excess sugar the Philippines could produce.

But in the mid-1970s, the countries of Western Europe suddenly became self-sufficient in sugar, thanks to high government subsidies to their sugar beet farmers, and the U.S. Congress, responding to a shrinking demand for sugar imports, allowed the Laurel-Langley pact to expire.

Laurel-Langley called for preferential trading between the Philippines and its former colonial ruler, the U.S. The pact assured the Philippines an annual quota of sugar exports to the U.S., and Filipino producers were reimbursed at prices well above the world market.

Bryant George, of the U.S. Agency for International Development, says the system encouraged Negros sugar growers to plant cane ''all the way to their back windowsills.''

When Laurel-Langley expired in 1974, the bottom fell out of the Philippine sugar market. U.S. imports dropped from a high of 1.2 million tons per year to 330,000 tons in 1975.

The quota system was reinstituted in 1982, but the new quotas were based on countries` average sugar exports to the U.S. between 1975 and 1981, down years for the Philippines.

For 1984-85, the Philippine sugar quota was only 312,000 tons out of a predicted harvest of 1.6 million tons. The sugar surplus is so great and the money shortage so severe that ripe cane stands unharvested in the hot sun when cutters should be working from dawn to dusk and mills should be grinding around the clock.

The Philippine government says it wants to ease the problem next year by limiting production to 1.3 million tons. But the crisis is almost certain to continue because the U.S. quota will be lowered to 215,000 tons.

''There is a strong anti-U.S. sentiment here,'' says Dr. Violeta Lopez-Gonzaga, author of a just-published study entitled ''Crisis and Poverty in Sugarlandia.''

''It`s really an anti-Marcos sentiment, but the grass roots associate

(President Ferdinand) Marcos with the U.S., especially in the sugar industry. Immediately, what happens in New York (on the sugar market) has an impact on the lowly worker here in Negros.''

Rev. Baby Gordoncillo, a young priest who likes Camel cigarettes, comfortable jogging shoes and striped pullovers, agrees.

''The U.S. went out to serve its short-term needs at the expense of the Filipino people,'' says Father Gordoncillo. ''I have the feeling that ever since we began planting sugar for export, we were on the road to doom.''

The priest supports a theory espoused by Ramon Nolan, former Philippine Sugar Institute chairman, who says American officials encouraged the Philippines to revamp its sugar industry in 1959, when Cuba stopped exporting 3.2 million tons of sugar per year to the U.S.

In a much-publicized speech on Oct. 27, Nolan, a former ambassador, said that the U.S. should restore the old Laurel-Langley sugar quota of 980,000 tons per year from the Philippines. ''America is obligated to restore that quota,'' he said. ''There is no justifiable reason why the country should be deprived of it.''

Not everyone agrees.

Salvador Laguda, president of the Philippine National Development Bank in Bacolod, points out that the U.S. government is paying 18 to 21 cents per pound for Philippine sugar when demand for artificial sweeteners and a flood of European sugar beets has pushed the world price of sugar down to about 3 cents per pound.

''They are the only ones buying our sugar at prices that help us stay alive,'' he said.

Laguda calls the Philippine sugar crisis a ''totally homemade mess''

stemming from failure of the disbanded, state-run National Sugar Trading Corp. (Nasutra) to pay planters for their crops.

''Apparently Nasutra doesn`t have the money to pay, so the planters don`t have the money to pay off their loans,'' says Laguda. ''If the planters don`t pay off their loans, the banks won`t lend them money for the next crop. And without new loans, the growing and milling seasons get shortened and the workers go hungry. It`s a never-ending circle.''

The downward spiral began in the martial law period of the 1970s when Roberto Benedicto, a fraternity brother of Marcos at the University of the Philippines, was given control of the sugar industry and Eduardo Cojuangco, godfather to Marcos`s son and grandson, was made lord of the coconut empire.

Benedicto ruled Nasutra and its parent regulatory body, the Philippine Sugar Commission (Philsucom), from 1977 until both groups were revamped recently under International Monetary Fund pressure.

A confidential government audit in February is said to have concluded that Nasutra underreported profits by $430 million from 1978-83, the six years Benedicto controlled it.

Last year, when the sugar crisis began to take hold, the Marcos government urged Negros farmers to switch to corn. The government, however, continued to import large amounts of high-protein corn and did not deliver promised heat driers to help farmers prepare their crops for market.

The result was low corn prices.

Cojuangco, considered a possible running mate if Marcos goes ahead with special elections early next year, stepped in to buy the harvest at profitably low prices. He owns San Miguel Corp., which produces beer and runs a chicken operation that buys more hybrid corn than any other firm in the Philippines.

''There is a linkage of the problems to Marcos that wasn`t there a year ago,'' says Dr. Lopez-Gonzaga of the LaSalle College Social Research Center. That linkage has given fodder to left-wing activists, particularly Communist rebels known as the New People`s Army.

''The government looks upon what is happening as an insurgency, but it is simply that the sugar workers can`t eat,'' says Serge Cherniguin, 50, head of the radical National Federation of Sugarcane Workers.

Cherniguin, whose father fought for the Russian czar against the Bolsheviks, says his union represents 50,000 of the 439,000 sugar workers on Negros and is growing daily. ''But even we have had defections by workers who don`t think we are radical enough,'' he said.

The church is feeding 20,000 people a day through the Catholic Relief Services, and the U.S. government is helping another 18,000 through Agency for International Development programs. But unlike the church, the U.S. government gets little credit for its help.

To cut government bureaucracy and speed relief to the people of Negros, AID has funneled most of its $2 million in emergency contributions in the last nine months through private organizations such as CARE and Philippine Businessmen for Social Progress.

''Many people are skeptical of USAID down here,'' says Dr. Lopez-Gonzaga, who said she avoided American help and went to the Canadian government for money to conduct her study on Negros. ''The USAID people make good promises, but they are very slow in coming.''

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The crowded malnutrition ward at Monteliban Hospital is where the lucky victims of government corruption, private greed and general apathy come to live or die. ``One of the great tragedies here is that people have become so accustomed to hunger that they don`t understand when a child is really sick,`` says Dr. Lourdes Espina, head of the hospital`s pediatrics wing.

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-Resistance of against the coconut levy and monopoly of sugar industry
-Resistance of the Philippine Business Community against Crony Capitalism: Issues and Prescription in 1982
-Resistance of technocrats

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Mula sa limang strike na filed noong 1975 lumobo ito sa 280 noong 1981 (Bureau of Labor Relations, 1981)

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In a speech to the First ASEAN Forestry Congress in 1983, Marcos declared:

I believe we should begin by asking ourselves how we are going to utilize our forest resources. Shall we, for example, continue to parlay our future, the future welfare of our people and the environment, to satisfy our immediate need for foreign exchange? Shall we allow our loggers to push back our tribal forest settlers to the innermost recesses of our forest lands? The answers to these and similar questions are quite obvious.

The above passage demonstrates Marcos's keen understanding of the role that forests play in driving economic development, but at the same time the necessity of safeguarding their natural wealth as an investment in future generations. Marcos criticizes in this speech how businesses at present seem to be exploiting the environment, compromising the nation's long-term welfare for short-term gratification. Moreover, Marcos displays sensitivity to how environmental exploitation even has immediate effects on indigenous peoples, who are otherwise easily forgotten in mainstream discussions of the utilization of natural resources.

However, as much as Marcos trumpeted his love of the environment in his public rhetoric, the environmental programs his administration implemented turned out to have many adverse effects. During the Marcos regime, abuses were rampant on both the environment itself and the indigenous people who subsisted on it, often for the benefit of Marcos and his cronies. In this exhibit, we look more closely at the contradictions which constituted the Marcos environmental agenda, reflecting on how the destruction of the forests and countryside left a scar on the nation in more ways than one.

Projects were envisioned to enrich the countryside. But they were often detrimental to the communities that lived there.

Every April 24 since 1985, the people of Cordillera celebrate Cordillera Day. They started celebrating it in memory of the Butbut tribe leader Macli-ing Dulag, slain by military men on the same day in 1980, for opposing the Chico Dam project headed by the National Power Corporation and funded by the World Bank. The project would have seen the construction of four dams along the Chico River, used by thousands of villagers of Kalinga and Bontoc for irrigation and domestic purposes. The dam would have disrupted their customary activities and even caused flooding in the areas.

Due to the strong opposition following Dulag's murder, the project was cancelled. It was on the fight against the Chico Dam that the World Bank based its 1982 operational policy statement concerning indigenous peoples. The World Bank emphasized the necessity of prior consent and communication with the community before taking on projects. While the Marcos administration did speak with tribe leaders like Macli-ing Dulag, they persisted even when the locals did not agree.

The Cordillera peoples' opposition was informed by the intimate relationship that they-like the rest of our indigenous brothers-had with the environment. For them, the environment-mountains, rivers, woods, plains-are not for individual humans to own, and hence certainly not for big corporations either.

The green revolution introduced new rice technology to boost farm production. But it increased inequality instead of benefitting the farmers themselves.

With the establishment of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in 1962 also came the beginning of the so-called green revolution. The green revolution, targeting to enrich the vast Filipino fields, was meant to boost rice production and hence feed more Filipinos, particularly the poorer of our countrymen. More than solving hunger, it was also meant to solve unemployment- the more rice needed, the more farmers could work in the fields. The program was going to achieve this through scientific advances of IRRI, which would produce rice that could yield more crop.

However, the reality was that rice was not prioritized. Instead, other crops like corn, pineapple, and coconut received greater attention because they turned out to be more profitable than rice, especially as export products. This demonstrates how reliance on export profits often serviced industries and businesses over ordinary Filipinos. The priority given to exports served the interests of landowners and those engaged in trade over the people who worked in the fields themselves. It made the rich even richer and the poor and hungry, poorer and hungrier.

During the era, Philippine log exports helped boost the economy to be competitive in Asia. But these developments rode on the back of massive deforestation, crony capitalism, and displacement of indigenous peoples.

During the Marcos regime, the Philippines became a major exporter of logs to the US and Japan. At the same time, however, it also became notorious for the denudation of local forests. And while fewer and fewer trees made up the country's forest cover-from two-thirds to one-third of the country's land area-timberlands that were supposed to be publicly owned became the logging empires of fewer than 200 individuals.

The result: over 8 million hectares of forest trees gone, 2 million of which had been severely damaged beyond the point of restoration. In comparison, the island of Mindanao is about 9.8 million hectares.

And it was not that countries like Japan have no forest cover or trees to cut down for lumber. It was precisely their desire to preserve their forests that they turned to countries like ours to supply them with lumber. Thus, biodiversity was preserved and erosions prevented in other Asian countries, while the opposite prevailed in our own. This is an example of the global inequality Marcos condemned in his speeches, whereby more developed countries advance at the expense of less developed ones.

But despite Marcos's public support for the preservation of forests, his real actions spoke otherwise. In his speeches he decried careless deforestation for short-term economic benefit, but Marcos has also been documented to use logging licenses as leverage for his cronies. For example, while strictly imposing economic sanctions on competitors, Marcos would give concessions to crony-owned logging companies like Herminio Disini's Cellophil Resources Corporation. On top of the advantage of being able to operate at lower costs, Marcos cronies in the industry were also allowed to log in heritage lands supposedly reserved for ethnic minorities. To accommodate crony activities, the people would be displaced from their homes, and the military would be used to neutralize any opposition.

Conclusion

The environmental concerns during the Marcos regime demonstrate the following: first, that the affront to the environment was simultaneously an affront to the people that dwelled in it, especially indigenous peoples who treat land with a special reverence; second, that the threat to the environment in the country was tied to the selfish interests of big corporations-often owned by foreigners or local cronies-thereby affecting the country's economy and citizens as a whole.

Looking at these contradictions in Marcos's environmental agenda lets us see that exploiting the country's natural resources is always interconnected with human rights, agriculture, and the economy. Whereas Marcos spoke grandly of preserving the forests for the greater good of the people, as it turned out, the greater good was only for a privileged few.

Illustrations by Joreen Navarro

References

1. Bantayog ng mga Bayani. (2016). Martyrs & heroes. Retrieved from http://www.bantayog.org/?page_id=217

2. Bantayog ng mga Bayani. (2015). The Cordillera Resistance against Chico Dam and Cellophil. Retrieved from http://www.bantayog.org/the-cordillera-resistance-against-chico-dam-and-cellophil/

3. Boyce, J. K. (1993). The political economy of growth and impoverishment in the Marcos era. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press.

4. Hirsch, P., & Warren, C. (1998). The politics of environment in Southeast Asia: Resources and resistance. New York: Routledge.

5. Vitug, M. D. (1993). Power from the forest: The politics of logging. Manila: Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism.

6. World Bank (2016). Indigenous Peoples. Retrieved from http://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/indigenouspeoples

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Green Devolution: Contradictions in the Marcos Environmental Agenda

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In a speech to the First ASEAN Forestry Congress in 1983, Marcos declared: The above passage demonstrates Marcos's keen understanding of the role that forests play in driving economic development, but at the same time the necessity of safeguarding their natural wealth as an investment in future generations.

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Need to Know: Totoo bang Golden Age ng Pilipinas ang panahon ng mga Marcos?

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An important feature of any democracy is the free circulation of information. For people to properly assess what is happening in the country, what their leaders are doing, and how all these affect them, they have the fundamental right to obtain and engage this information. Forms of media like the newspaper, radio, and television play a vital role in ensuring that key information reaches the people.

As they carry out their duty, journalists that report on the activities of government, businesses, and civil society may often expose errors and even wrongdoing by certain individuals and groups. This is also important to democracy: freedom of information also entails freedom to criticize. This allows citizens to make better choices when it comes to selecting their leaders, and it even challenges leaders to perform their duties better with competence and integrity, knowing they will be held accountable to their people for what they say and do.

In his ascent to power, Marcos was well-aware of the role that the media played in society, and he exerted considerable effort to exercise control over it. By shutting down competing voices and setting up a media outlet that was under his control, Marcos silenced public criticism and controlled the information that the people had access to. By doing so, Marcos had the final say in whatever passed for the truth.

On September 28, 1972, Marcos issued Letter of Instruction No. 1, authorizing the military to take over the assets of major media outlets including the ABS-CBN network, Channel 5, and various radio stations across the country. This was within the first week of his declaration of Martial Law.

As justification for this mass sequestration of media assets, the Letter of Instruction cited the involvement of these media outlets with the Communist movement. Specifically, Marcos accused mainstream media of discrediting the administration, by propagating news that exposed its weaknesses to feed the flames of the Communist movement.

In the Letter, Marcos states that these media outlets were:

engaged in subversive activities against the Government . . . in the broadcast and dissemination of subversive materials and of deliberately slanted and overly exaggerated news stories and commentaries as well as false, vile, foul and scurrilous statements and utterances, clearly well-conceived, intended and calculated to malign and discredit the duly constituted authorities, and thereby promote the agitational propaganda campaign, conspiratorial activities and illegal ends of the Communist Party of the Philippines . . .

Teodoro Locsin, Sr., publisher of the Philippines Free Press, was arrested and imprisoned on the first week of Martial Law, along with Manila Times publisher, Chino Roces, and several well-known journalists including Amando Doronila, Luis Beltran, Maximo Soliven, Juan Mercado, and Luis Mauricio. On the night of their arrest, the detainees were led to a room by Col. Generoso Alejo where they were met by then Philippine Constabulary chief, Fidel V Ramos, who told them:

Nothing personal, gentlemen. I was ordered to neutralize you. Please cooperate. We'll try to make things easier for you.

So how did people receive their information during all these shutdowns? Were all the media totally wiped out?

Not quite. In fact, amidst the news outlets being sequestered, some were still allowed to continue running print issues and airing shows on the airwaves. These included the Philippine Daily Express, the Kanlaon Broadcasting System, and several television channels. However, it is important to note that these remaining media outlets all belonged to Marcos cronies. Roberto Benedicto, for instance, owned Kanlaon and the Daily Express, while greatly enjoying Marcos's favor as his appointed chairman of the Philippine National Bank, ambassador to Japan, and head of the Philippine Sugar Commission.

Primitivo Mijares, who served as Chairman of the Media Advisory Council, was Marcos's top media man and propagandist. As chair of the council, Mijares had the power to dictate and censor content in all forms of media. In a change of heart, he confessed in a 24-page memo to the US House International Organizations subcommittee how he had aided Marcos in silencing media stories that exposed government abuses while fabricating others that would trumpet the administration's supposed successes.

Primitivo Mijares. Photo by Elaine Ko, 1976.

In the memo, Mijares especially discusses how Marcos created an atmosphere of danger to create the pretext for the declaration of Martial Law, including but not limited to: having the military explode bombs during demonstrations, planting explosives in civilian areas which killed innocent bystanders, and threatening election personnel and members of the Constitutional Convention with violence. On the other hand, all this violence was blamed on the Communists, whom they alleged had received special assistance from foreign powers to support a government takeover.

The Media Advisory Council continued to play a vital role with Martial Law in full effect. In October 1972, when the Supreme Court was reviewing the factual basis for Martial Law, Mijares published a series of stories on New People's Army rebels amassing by the thousands in the hills around Manila. In December 1972, when Marcos got wind of opposition to his proposed Constitution, Mijares published articles attacking specific delegates and legislators as destabilizing the government. In August 1973, when Marcos and his cronies could not get control of the Lepanto Consolidated Mining Company, Mijares also fabricated allegations of stock manipulation and fraud.

On September 20, 1974, Marcos appeared on the NBC Today Show told viewers: "There is no censorship at present."

References

1. Letter of Instruction No. 1. The Official Gazette of the Philippines. Retrieved from http://www.officialgazette.gov.ph/1972/09/28/letter-of-instruction-no-1-a-s-1972/

2. Mijares, P. (1976). The conjugal dictatorship of Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos. New York: Union Square Publications.

3. Pinlac, M. (2007). Marcos and the press. Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility. Retrieved from http://cmfr-phil.org/media-ethics-responsibility/ethics/marcos-and-the-press/

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Breaking the News: Silencing the Media Under Martial Law

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The Martial Law Memorial Museum aims to be a comprehensive online learning resource that our community of educators can use to teach the values of human rights, freedom, democracy, and engaged citizenship to Filipino students.

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99% of the $150M agricultural agreement between Philippines and the World bank went to import various agri inputs (fertilizers, feedgrains, veterinary products). "Rescue operation in reverse"

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1. paggapos
2. electric shock
3. San Juanico Bridge
4. Truth Serum
5. Russian Roulette
6. Beating
7. pistol whipping
8. water cure
9. strangulation
10. burning
11. pepper torture
12. animal treatment
13. sexual abuse

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Don Kevin Hapal is Rappler's Head of Data and Innovation. He started at Rappler as a digital communications specialist, then went on to lead Rappler's Balikbayan section for overseas Filipinos. He was introduced to data journalism while writing and researching about social media, disinformation, and propaganda.

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Worse than death: Torture methods during martial law

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Don Kevin Hapal is Rappler's Head of Data and Innovation. He started at Rappler as a digital communications specialist, then went on to lead Rappler's Balikbayan section for overseas Filipinos. He was introduced to data journalism while writing and researching about social media, disinformation, and propaganda.

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The Marcos administration is best remembered for its contributions to the development of Philippine infrastructure. Under Marcos, an unprecedented number of buildings were constructed, varying from public health centers to cultural edifices. It is undeniable that Marcos played an integral role in the development of public infrastructure, with many of the roads and buildings constructed during his time still in use today.

However, Marcos' achievements in public infrastructure did not come without a price. Many of Marcos' projects were funded by foreign loans that left the Philippines with an outstanding debt of about $28.3 billion by 1986. These projects were also often the site for gross overspending, garishness, and corruption.

Here we present some of the buildings constructed during the Marcos administration and the often untold stories that accompanied their establishment. Through this exhibit, we hope to ask: as citizens, how can we appreciate the benefits of certain infrastructure projects, while remaining aware of the costs it took for them to be built? Can the same building tell a story of development and a story of corruption at the same time?

The Bataan Nuclear Power Plant

The Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP) was the Marcos administration's solution to the oil crisis of 1973. The nuclear plant was estimated to save about 6 million barrels of crude oil a year and address the country's numerous power shortages. As the National Power Corporation reports, the 623 MW electrical capacity of the BNPP could have met 10% of the power requirements of the Luzon grid. However, despite the plant's promise of alternative energy, the construction of the BNPP was rife with controversy.

Bidding for the BNPP project was initially between two nuclear firms: General Electric (GE) and Westinghouse. After a year of extensive investigation of the Philippine situation, GE submitted a detailed proposal to build two 600-MW reactors for $700 million favored by the nuclear committee of the National Power Corporation. By comparison, Westinghouse's proposal was made using only a pamphlet and a quoted price of $500 million for two reactors.

It was through connections with Marcos ally Herminio Disini that Westinghouse secured approval from Marcos to build the BNPP. Though Westinghouse's initial quote was at $500 million for two reactors, the price later ballooned to $1.1 billion for only one reactor. As the National Computer Center reported, in comparison to similar plants in Taiwan and South Korea, the BNPP was overpriced by at least $75 million.

After the scare generated by the Three Mile Island nuclear meltdown of 1979, construction of the BNPP was halted by Marcos. Subsequent safety inspections deemed the BNPP unsafe. Moreover, independent studies found that the BNPP was within a 100-mile radius of 4 active volcanoes and 25 miles of three geologic faults. ² In later negotiations, Westinghouse agreed to make safety modifications amounting to $55 million on top of the plant's initial cost. ³

By January 1985, the BNPP was completed and cost an estimated total of $2.2 billion. A 1994 study reports that the cost of the BNPP alone represented around 8% of Philippine foreign debt. ³ It took over thirty years for the government to fully pay the cost of the power plant's construction.

Following Marcos' removal from power, the first Aquino administration decided to shut down the plant in fear of another Chernobyl disaster. Nonetheless, Aquino also ordered for the maintenance and preservation of the plant until the government could decide what to do with the plant. Since then, the BNPP continues to see no use beyond serving as a tourist destination despite the PhP 50 million used in annual maintenance funds.

Cultural Center of the Philippines Complex

The development of the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) complex resulted from the Marcos administration's emphasis on nurturing Filipino culture and "the Filipino soul." Designed under the guidance of architect Leandro Locsin, the complex was built on land reclaimed from Manila Bay. It became home to the artistic creations of numerous artists such as Hernando Ocampo, Fernando Zobel, Arturo Luz, Cesar Legaspi, and Vicente Manansala.

As the name suggests, the complex was also the site for many state-sponsored cultural activities. The events ranged from the Miss Universe Pageant in 1974, which led to the construction of the Folk Arts Theater, to the Manila International Film Festival in 1982, which led to the construction of the controversial Manila Film Center. Other buildings located in the complex include the Coconut Palace or Tahanang Pilipino and the Philippine International Convention Center.

However, the construction of the CCP complex took a heavy toll on the government's coffers because it relied on loaned resources. Marcos funded the construction of the complex with money from the Cultural Development Fund, money gathered through Imelda's fund-raising efforts, and money loaned from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. By 1972, the CCP was burdened with debt amounting to PhP 63 million from the construction of the theater alone. Not long after the declaration of martial law, President Marcos instigated a bailout of the CCP, with the government assuming financial liability of the center.

Manila Film Center

In hopes of turning Manila into Asia's film capital and rival to Cannes, Imelda rushed to complete the Manila Film Center for the 1982 Manila International Film Festival (MIFF) on January 18, 1982. All in all, the Parthenon-inspired film center cost an estimated $25 million to build and took around 7,000 workers working round-the-clock shifts to meet Imelda's deadline of three months. ⁴ The film center was completed 15 minutes before its opening.

In addition to the construction of the Manila Film Center, Imelda also ordered the reclamation of parts of the Manila Bay shoreline to create a 240-hectare white-sand beach behind the CCP complex. ⁴ White sand was consequently quarried from the cities of Mariveles and Cavite. The rationale behind the construction was Imelda's desire to recreate the atmosphere at Cannes and impress the foreign visitors of the Manila Film Festival.

The Manila Film Center made international headlines, however, not for its magnificent structure, but for the tragedy that befell it. At around 3:00am on November 17, 1981, the roof of the film center collapsed and an alleged 169 workers were buried under the drying cement. ⁴ Some were completely drowned in the rubble, while others were half-buried. All rescue attempts were delayed until an official statement could be made, and it took 9 hours before ambulances were permitted on site. Despite the scale of the accident, construction did not halt and many of the victims were left buried under the concrete to meet the film center's tight deadlines.

While Imelda projected the film festival would draw 4,500 celebrities and gross $52 million, many film stars ignored her invitations. The tragedy also worsened the financial problems of the film center. The expenses for the opening night and later operating expenditures amounted to about $4 million, which would later be shouldered by the Central Bank. To compensate for this, the MIFF opened its doors to the screening of pornographic films, resulting in public outrage.

San Juanico Bridge

Perhaps one of the most iconic structures built under the Marcos regime is the San Juanico Bridge, also known as the Marcos bridge. Estimated to have cost about $21 million, the bridge measures approximately two kilometers long and connects the provinces of Samar and Leyte across the San Juanico strait. Its construction took only four years, beginning on August 1969 and ending December 1972. The bridge is also seen as a testimonial of love by the president as it is said to have been presented as a gift to first lady Imelda, a native of Leyte.

The same bridge, however, has also received criticism for being superfluous at the time it was built. As Ricardo Manapat writes, traffic between the two then underdeveloped islands was not yet enough to warrant the construction of the bridge, and for its cost, the bridge served little purpose beyond leisurely travel. As a commissioned project to the Construction and Development Corporation of the Philippines, the bridge had a budget that was bloated to benefit company owner and Marcos crony Rodolfo Cuenca. Moreover, while Ferdinand's romantic gesture has also been publicized as part of its attraction to tourists, the integrity of using public funds for such a purpose has also been questioned.

Today, the San Juanico bridge forms a part of the identity of people in Samar and Leyte. A beautiful monument, it is an iconic tourist attraction that also contributes to the economic activity of the two provinces.

Manila Bay Reclamation Project

One of the biggest projects under the Marcos government was the $1 billion reclamation of Manila Bay in 1974 spearheaded also by the Rodolfo Cuenva's CDCP. The project aimed to create a ten-kilometer highway to Cavite from reclaimed land that would address the problem of traffic jams and parking. It was subsequently known as the Manila-Cavite Coastal Road Reclamation Project (MCCRP) or "New City."

Initially, the project's goal was to add 1160 hectares of land to the city, but this was later increased to 2700 hectares and once more to 3000 hectares. As such, deadlines were continually revised with CDCP's initial quote setting the project deadline to 1990 and later deferring it to 2004.

However, the CDCP faced numerous issues throughout the course of the project. Upon examination of the reclamation project, "technical defects" were found in the plans and subsequently had to be corrected which increased the cost of the project. Moreover, though the company had initially planned to finance the project by selling the reclaimed land, potential buyers showed little to no interest in the project, and the CDCP's later appeals for funds, with the aid of the Marcos government were denied.

As a result, the CDCP had to depend on government support, with Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP) and the Philippine National Bank (PNB) funding 70% of the work, and other government agencies being persuaded to purchase reclaimed land to compensate for the project's losses.

Tondo Urban Renewal Project

Imelda, then also acting as Governor of Metro Manila, was granted $32 million by the World Bank to rehabilitate the slums of Tondo under the project known as the Tondo Urban Renewal Project, which coincided with the International Monetary Fund (IMF)-World Bank Conference in Manila.

However, because it was too late to execute a complete urban renewal in time for the 1976 conference, Imelda ordered about 60 thousand families to be forcibly removed from the slum and its edges. Their houses were demolished to give the illusion of the project's progress as families were carted off in garbage trucks to an isolated site outside Manila.

In comparison, Imelda rushed for the completion of convention facilities and exhibition halls for the conference delegates. This included the construction of the $65 million Philippine International Convention Center (PICC) and the Philippine Center for International Trade and Exhibition (PHILCITE). In preparation for the IMF-World Bank Conference, Imelda also ordered the construction of various luxury hotels, with fourteen hotels receiving foreign loans of about $500 million at the government's recommendation. The amount spent on hotel financing was reportedly 30 to 40 times the amount the government spent on public housing.

References

1. Beaver, W. (1994). Nuclear nightmare in the Philippines. Journal of Business Ethics, 13(271), 271-279. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/25072530

2. Lico, G. (2003). Edifice complex: Power, myth, and Marcos state architecture. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press.

3. Manapat, R. (1991). Some are smarter than others: A history of Marcos' crony capitalism. Aletheia Publications.

4. Mijares, P. (1976). The conjugal dictatorship of Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos. New York, NY: Union Square Publications.

5. National Power Corporation. (2014). Bataan Nuclear Power Plant. National Power Corporation. Retrieved from http://www.napocor.gov.ph/index.php/bataan-nuclear-power-plant

6. Richter, L. (1989). The politics of tourism in Asia. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press.

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Edifice Complex: Building on the Backs of the Filipino People

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The Marcos administration is best remembered for its contributions to the development of Philippine infrastructure. Under Marcos, an unprecedented number of buildings were constructed, varying from public health centers to cultural edifices. It is undeniable that Marcos played an integral role in the development of public infrastructure, with many of the roads and buildings constructed during his time still in use today.

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https://www.officialgazette.gov.ph/1972/09/21/proclamation-no-1081/

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https://news.abs-cbn.com/focus/multimedia/slideshow/09/20/17/the-marcoses-ill-gotten-wealth

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Excerpt from the Martial Law Diary by Danilo P. Vizmanos

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Excerpt from the Martial Law Diary by Danilo P. Vizmanos

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"When they mouth the term "national security" what they actually mean is the security of the privileged ruling class and its American Masters in this country"

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What Happened to the Billions That Former President Marcos Stole From the Philippines| The Big Steal

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One of the most striking features of the Marcos regime was not only the growing incidence of poverty in the nation, but also the other extreme of excess which marked the lifestyle of the richest of the rich.

Among the wealthiest that engaged in such indulgences were the First Family themselves. In the following exhibit, we examine how the Marcoses lived while they held power.

Houses

Marcos' 57-hectare property in Paoay. Source: Rappler

Conservative estimates claim the Marcoses had about fifty houses as their private property. About nine of these were located in Baguio as summer residences, where the three Marcos children Bongbong, Imee, and Irene each had their own house. Each house had a beautiful view of the mountains surrounding the area. Other properties were scattered across Makati, Paranaque, San Juan, Cavite, Leyte, and Ilocos Norte.

Malacañan of the North. Source: Go Visit Philippines

In Ilocos Norte, Ferdinand's home province, a "Malacañan of the North" was built beside a beautiful lake. In Leyte, Imelda's home province, Imelda erected a shrine to the Santo Niño which had 13 guest rooms and the Marcos living quarters on the second floor. Each room depicted a scene from Imelda's life. In one of the reception halls, there is a painting of Imelda rising from the sea holding a clam shell emblazoned with the faces of her children. The entire property was estimated at about $27 million.

Imelda's Santo Niño Shrine in Tacloban Leyte. Source: Wikipedia

Nearby in a town called Olot, the Marcoses also had a private seaside resort, built in 1974 to entertain the participants to the Miss Universe pageant in the Philippines. The resort had about a dozen houses and guest cottages, a swimming pool, and an 18-hole golf course. To fill the entire resort, bermuda grass was flown in from Manila through the Philippine Air Force.

Imelda with the Miss Universe winner in 1974.

The budget of the Office of the President was used to construct, renovate, and maintain these houses. Estimates of total costs reach about $3.2 million in 1984 and $10.5 million in 1985. Since these are only the figures covered by the Commission on Audit, actual expenditures may easily be much higher. In that decade, the Marcos family's expenses for the upkeep of their residences would have been enough to feed 8,000 starving families of six for an entire year. That's the same as a small town with a population of 48,000.

Ferdinand Marcos with son Bong Bong. Source: Malacanang Presidential Library

Healthcare

The Marcos family took good care of their health. In fact, Ferdinand Marcos took five kidney dialysis machines from Manila hospitals for his personal use. Records show that in 1984 Marcos spent over $60,000 in medicine and medical supplies, and $70,000 in 1985. A mini-hospital worth about $250,000 was left behind in Malacanang when the Marcoses were forced to flee in 1986.

For the health of others, on the other hand, Ferdinand issued Presidential Decrees for the construction of many designer hospitals which stand until today: the Philippine Heart Center, the Lung Center, and the Kidney Center. These very expensive institutions were equipped with state-of-the-art technology, but procedures at these centers often cost too much for the ordinary Filipino to afford.

Instead, ordinary Filipinos often required more basic care at regular hospitals. These hospitals suffered from a lack of medicine and a dismal bed-to-patient ratio of 1:650. Surgery was sometimes performed without anesthesia. Tuberculosis patients often shared beds. On the other hand, the Heart Center had a bar, an upright piano, and 250 beds. In 1986, the Lung Center had only one patient.

Schools

Bong Bong in Wharton. Source: Bong Bong Marcos' Website

The Marcoses also deeply valued a good education. They accepted only the best schools for their own children: Imee Marcos went to Princeton, while Bongbong Marcos went to Wharton. Government funds from the Philippine National Bank were used to pay for Imee's tuition of $4,445 per semester. At least 15 bank accounts in the US were also used for Bongbong's tuition. Both Marcos children received a monthly allowance of about $10,000.

Imee Marcos, in particular, was bought an 18 th century Princeton estate to live in during her studies. Hundreds of books lined the shelves of the second floor, including many classics, which would have made Imee a very well-educated woman indeed. Unfortunately, she did not finish her Princeton degree, and instead enrolled at the University of the Philippines College of Law. Although Manila newspapers claimed she graduated with honors, the student council demanded her official file of records, since Imee did not in fact have the credentials to study at the law school in the first place. Neither did her name appear on the official list of graduating students. The student council demand was never resolved.

Imee Marcos. Source: Imee Marcos' Facebook Page

In contrast, during the Marcos period, there was one book for every eight students at best, where 79% of the books were at least 5-10 years old. Because of a lack of funds, college enrolment dropped by about half a million in 1985; only 17% of eligible college students were actually in college. In 1977, about 4 million young people aged 15-21 were unable to go to school due to poverty. For every 100 children that started school in Grade 1, only 4 would reach senior year of high school.

Steve Tirona, 2009.

Family Gifts

Like any Filipino family, the Marcoses also loved each other. One way they expressed this love was giving each other various gifts. For example, on their 24 th anniversary, Imelda Marcos gave Ferdinand 24 gold bars, inscribed: "To my husband on our 24 th wedding anniversary." As a token of their romance, Ferdinand Marcos built Imelda the San Juanico Bridge.

Calauit Island, now a wildlife sanctuary, was created as a private hunting ground for Bongbong Marcos, with 120 poor families of farmers and fisherfolk evicted from the land to make way for the African giraffes, zebras, elands, impalas, gazelles, waterbucks, and topis bought at government expense. Monthly maintenance costs amounted to $30,000.

For the wedding of Irene Marcos, the youngest of the Marcos children, thousands of men worked to renovate Sarrat in Ilocos Norte. Old houses were demolished and Spanish colonial houses were erected in their place. The centuries-old Santa Monica Church was specially repaired for the wedding. Austrian carriages and Moroccan horses were imported for the bride and her entourage to be paraded around the town. Flowers were flown in from Hawaii. Two dozen extra flights were scheduled for special guests. Total costs for the wedding were estimated at about $10.3 million.

With the economic state of the nation at the time, it was not uncommon for parents to make great sacrifices for their children. Some parents of poor families regularly sold their blood to hospitals to buy rice. Men offered their labor cheap, without insurance or benefits. Because there were so many of them, it was easy to find replacements anyway. In 1976, an estimated 50,000 women in the Philippines earned their living as prostitutes; that's about 1 in every 400 Filipino women. After decades of hard work, many Filipinos retired without pension because the banks in charge had run out of money, bankrupt by the abuse of funds by the First Family and their cronies.

Conclusion

In President Marcos's speeches hailing the establishment of his New Society, he condemned extreme poverty in Philippine society and the gross inequality which enabled and exacerbated it.

In no uncertain terms, he declared that his New Society would eliminate the excesses of the wealthy and usher in an era of true equality, wherein every Filipino could live a life that fulfills their potential and honors their inherent human dignity.

In light of Marcos's own pronouncements, it is troubling to consider the facts of how Marcos and his own family lived while in power. What justifies such an excessive lifestyle? How can we face such a contradiction in words and deeds?

References

1. Manapat, R. (1991). Some are smarter than others. New York: Aletheia Publications.

2. Presidential Decree No. 673. (1975). The Official Gazette of the Philippines. Retrieved from http://www.officialgazette.gov.ph/1975/03/19/presidential-decree-no-673-s-1975/

3. Presidential Decree No. 1823. (1981). The Official Gazette of the Philippines. Retrieved from http://www.officialgazette.gov.ph/1981/01/16/presidential-decree-no-1823-s-1981/

4. Presidential Decree No. 1832. (1981). The Official Gazette of the Philippines. Retrieved from http://www.officialgazette.gov.ph/1981/01/16/presidential-decree-no-1832-s-1981/

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Keeping Up with the Marcoses: Money, Fame and Fortune

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One of the most striking features of the Marcos regime was not only the growing incidence of poverty in the nation , but also the other extreme of excess which marked the lifestyle of the richest of the rich. Among the wealthiest that engaged in such indulgences were the First Family themselves.

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Official Gazette of the Republic of the Philippines

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presidential communications development and strategic planning office

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Infographic: The day Marcos declared Martial Law | GOVPH

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Official Gazette of the Republic of the Philippines - The Official Gazette is the official journal of the Republic of the Philippines. Edited at the Office of the President of the Philippines Under Commonwealth Act No. 638

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Infographic_ The day Marcos declared Martial Law _ Official Gazette of the Republic of the Philippines

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https://www.spot.ph/entertainment/movies-music-tv/83558/voltes-v-martial-law-explainer-a4362-20200913-lfrm

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(SPOT.ph) Everything was simpler when we were children. For most of us, we would wake up, go to school, go home, eat, play, and repeat; the closest we ever got to an actual problem were the rare times we would accidentally miss our favorite TV shows. For an entire generation of Pinoy kids, this problem became all too real when one of their most beloved cartoon series was unceremoniously pulled off the airwaves a few episodes from the freaking finale.

"A very traumatic period in our youth," jokes Johnny Bozania*, a now 50-something-year-old (the first half, he asks us to clarify) fan of Voltes V in an exchange with SPOT.ph. He was only 10 years old when the show first aired, making him barely a child when Ferdinand Marcos first came into power.

Martial law in the Philippines lasted from 1972 and well into the haze of the early '80s, giving way to a generation of children who grew up in the so-called "Bagong Lipunan" perpetuated by the conjugal dictatorship of Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos. While many of these kids grew up not realizing that things were not as they seemed in the Philippines, it was the sudden ban imposed over their much beloved, practically idolized Voltes V that was to be their first taste of totalitarian rule.

Let's Volt In!

First, what was it about Voltes V that had people hooked? Kids in the '70s were already being fed a steady diet of Japanese anime then; at the time, the schedule went Mekanda Robot on Mondays, Daimos on Tuesdays, Mazinger Z on Wednesdays, Grendizer on Thursdays, while Friday was reserved for the ultimate rating-raking Voltes V, noted Menchu Aquino Sarmiento of Business World. And yes, each one was a mecha anime with its own form of the famed Japanese super robot-but somehow, they could not hold a candle to Voltes V.

Voltes V first aired in 1978 on GMA Channel 7. In the Tagalog-dubbed version, the super robot was piloted by brothers Steve, Big Bert, and Little John-sons of the mysterious Dr. Armstrong-and Jamie Robinson, plus Mark Gordon. Each one has their own vehicle, all of which assemble into the super robot Voltes V, hence the famous "Let's volt in!" battle cry. Voltes V, once described by writer Jessica Zafra as looking "like a cross between an air-conditioner and a chicken"-would engage in epic battle and ultimately defeat monsters sent by the invading alien species, the Boazanians.

It didn't take long for the show to become every kid's obsession. Pretty soon there were all kinds of merchandise being sold and cries of "Let's volt in!" could be heard on every street where kids were playing. That is, until the show's airing was halted in 1979.

Voltes V Gets Booted Out

The kids had just witnessed the brilliant Voltes V team retrieve the missing Dr. Armstrong from the clutches of the cruel Boazanians. They were a couple half-hour episodes away from the eventual defeat and toppling of the alien race's tyrannical ruler Emperor Zanbazir when then President Marcos pulled the plug on it. The story of Voltes V was one that revolved around resistance and rebellion, themes that may not have settled so well in a dictatorial regime.

Why Marcos meddled in something as seemingly simple as a child's cartoon has long been a subject of debate and whisperings. The most obvious story is that it was banned because of its violent content. Remember Voltes V 's Laser Sword and how he used it to deliver the final blow to his enemies? Good times.

Bongbong Marcos defended his father's decision in 2012. According to him, Marcos was persuaded by guardians of the children watching Voltes V. "It was actually the parents that worried about the violence that they were afraid might influence their children in a negative way."

The president was acting on the demands of these people, despite the relationship of fictional violence and actual violence being a contentious subject. "So I guess my father saw it prudent to acquiesce to their demands on an issue that was and still is not well understood," he said.

There are also whispers of a certain Polly Cayetano of a Catholic Women's League, says Ingvar Rapido*, another now 50-something-year-old fan. It was supposedly this Cayetano that "made the request to the government" on the grounds of the show being "too violent." Now, whether these moral grounds would have fueled a strong enough petition to get the show off air without national executive power is likely or not, you decide.

One of the best arguments we heard while surveying this sudden ban in the '70s has to be, " Kasi sabi ni Ninoy mas pogi si Prince Zardoz kay Ferdinand. Nagalit tuloy si Imelda. Ayun." This, according to Archie,* another jilted 10-year-old then, still-a-fan-at-50 now.

And while most can joke about this little incident now, for the children of the '70s, the sudden disappearance of this anime series was more than enough to leave an indelible mark. "Especially as it was replaced by Candy Candy," remembers Bozania, referring to the admittedly much less violent and much more dramatic anime series following the life of a bright-eyed, blonde orphan named, well, Candy.

"The 'Great Ilocano' had it banned on grounds of excessive violence as a favor," is how Bozania recalls it, explaining that one crony was not pleased with the ratings the show was bringing to a competitor. "Never mind the violence his administration was perpetrating on the people."

On Anime and the Toppling of a Dictatorship

And so that is how children across the country were left bereft of closure in the '70s. It wasn't until decades later, after the Marcoses fled to Hawaii in 1986-after the political and economic turmoil that followed-that Martial Law babies were able to watch the final episodes of Voltes V. It was only when GMA aired the series again in 1999 that most were able to witness what happened between their Voltes V heroes and the Boazanians, how the resistance managed to overthrow a tyrannical ruler in a parallel between real life and TV sets.

There were three anime series banned by Marcos during martial law, Mazinger Z, Daimos, and Voltes V, the last two were re-aired by GMA in 1999, a move that is considered to have sparked the return of the anime craze in the Philippines. While we can't empirically quantify how this censorship affected children of the '70s, it was just one of many shows and forms of media that was banned by the Marcos regime-and a major lack that was certainly felt, and is still felt today. ABS-CBN, Ishmael Bernal's Manila By Night, Freddie Aguilar's "Bayan Ko," Primitivo Mijares' Conjugal Dictatorship, and the list goes on.

Voltes V would remain a part of Philippine popular culture for decades to come, with the opening theme song living on in children's toys, cellphone ringtones, and multiple parodies-as with the practically iconic "Let's volt in!"

In 2014, all the withheld childhood angst was finally able to come to the forefront though the works of artist Toym Imao, particularly a 13-foot-tall sculpture entitled " Last, Lost, Lust for Four Episodes." The massive structure featured a mishmash between Marcos and the Boazanians in the shape of Sky Rock, the warship of the Boazanian.

Imao was only 11 years old when Voltes V was pulled from the airwaves. "I knew that there was much talk about this martial law," Imao told Norman Sison of VERA Files. "It was only after the cancellation that I was awakened to the realities of the regime." It is hard to imagine it was not the same for many of the still-growing kids back then. As Sison pointed out, many of the kids who had been living sheltered lives were shaken out of it by the sudden cancellation-and seeing as they came of age in the '80s, it was almost poetic justice for them to join the People Power Revolution.

Imao's sculpture would make waves again in 2018 as it was exhibited on the very storied steps of Palma Hall in the University of the Philippines - Diliman, sparking discussions on the role of Voltes V during the regime more than three decades after it was first banned. Voltes V lives on as well in popular culture, with GMA even planning a live-action remake of the anime series.

Pulling out an anime series may seem like an inconsequential move, but somehow, the story of its banning has reached an almost mythic level of power, spreading far beyond the generation of children that used to spend their Friday afternoons in front of the TV, yelling "Let's volt in!"
*Names have been changed

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The Voltes V-Martial Law Crossover You Probably Didn't Know About

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(SPOT.ph) Everything was simpler when we were children. For most of us, we would wake up, go to school, go home, eat, play, and repeat; the closest we ever got to an actual problem were the rare times we would accidentally miss our favorite TV shows.

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Some argue that though abuses were indeed committed during Martial Law, life was good for those who did not try to fight the government. In fact, there are those who claim that the Marcos era was a Golden Age for the Philippines, characterized by booming infrastructure and a tiger economy.

In this exhibit, we examine the data from the 1960s to the end of the 1980s, with the goal of rigorously assessing the truth of these claims. No matter where one's political sympathies lie, a look at the numbers can give us an objective idea of the status of the Philippine economy under Marcos, and the mark that his rule left on our country.

Poverty in the Philippines

One of the first indicators that may point to the economic impact of the Marcos era is the change in poverty levels after his administration. The following graph provides us with the percentage of poor families in the Philippines and by region, comparing data from 1965 (when Marcos first took office), 1971 (right before Marcos declared Martial Law), 1975 (in the middle of Martial Law), and 1985 (right before the EDSA Revolution).

Click the image to zoom in

Clearly, the data indicate that poverty worsened over the course of the Marcos era. Whereas about 4 out of 10 families were poor before Marcos took office, 6 out of 10 families were poor by the end of his rule.

Moreover, as the graphs show, this is a consistent trend across the different regions of the nation, with some regions reaching as high a rate as 7 out of 10 families below the poverty line. Only two regions saw a marginal decrease in number of poor families: the Ilocos Region and Cagayan Valley.

Wages of Workers

A related indicator to poverty is the daily wage of workers. A daily wage is what a person earns in a day; on the other hand, a real wage is the value of the wage adjusted for inflation so that values are comparable across the years. By comparing a worker's real wages before and after the Marcos era, we can get a better understanding of the status of the economy as felt by the ordinary Filipino.

The following graph shows the change in real wages of Filipino agricultural workers from 1962 to 1986.

The data show that the daily wages of Filipino agricultural workers declined by about 30%, such that if a farmer earned Php 42 per day in 1972, he would only be earning about Php 30 in 1986. The wages of farmers even went as low as nearly half of the pre-Marcos values in 1974, right after the declaration of Martial Law.

On the other hand, for skilled and unskilled workers in urban areas, the graph below shows the change in their wages from pre-Marcos to EDSA values. Skilled workers are workers with some special knowledge or skill, often having gone to college or technical school; unskilled workers are workers without this level of training.

Prices of Goods

Another factor that provides us with a way to assess the alleged Golden Age is the price of basic goods. The graph below shows the change in consumer price index (CPI), as well as the prices of food and non-food items from 1962 to 1985. The CPI gives a measure of the prices of goods purchased by a typical consumer.

The graph above clearly shows a sharp increase in the prices of goods during the Marcos era. Especially by the last ten years, we can see that the prices of basic commodities tripled, such that what cost Php 100 in 1976 now cost more than Php 300-even nearing Php 400-in 1986.

Massive Deforestation

In addition to factors relating to the domestic economy, another way of assessing the Marcos regime is through its impacts on the nation's natural resources and the environment. The graph below specifically gives us an idea about how Marcos's policies affected our country's forest cover over the course of about 20 years.

Supposedly, about 90% of the Philippines' 18.7 million hectares of uplands, including more than 11 million hectares officially classified as timberlands, is publicly owned. In practice, fewer than 200 individuals controlled a large fraction of the country's forests.

In pursuit of economic gains, Marcos and his cronies' uncontrolled exportation of timber led to a drastic reduction in our forest cover. This cascades into dire environmental impacts including flooding, landslides, and even the worldwide phenomenon of global warming.

International Debt

Finally, we assess the data on international debt, which shows us how much money we borrowed from other countries.

From a nominal figure of $0.36 billion in 1961, the graph shows, our external debt skyrocketed to an egregious figure of $28.26 billion in 1986.

The whopping increase in our debts explains the growth, especially in infrastructure, primarily touted by some to assess the economic gains of the Marcos regime. But debt-driven growth is growth that sacrifices long-term benefits for short-term gratification, and ultimately leads to more burden than boon for the future generations that must pay these debts.

Conclusion

Considering how poverty increased, wages for workers decreased, and prices of goods increased significantly, one gets a clearer picture of the changes in lifestyle experienced by the ordinary Filipino. Progressively earning less while all around them, food and other basic needs were getting more and more expensive, one can imagine concretely the real economic impact that the supposed Golden Age had brought upon the nation.

Our assessment is exacerbated by an appraisal of the corresponding impacts the Marcos regime had both on the environment and our economic standing with other countries. Massive deforestation and accumulation of international debt plunged the nation's resources into peril in more ways than one, leading to effects we continue to feel and pay for to this day.

So was the Marcos era truly a Golden Age? Different people may tell different stories, but the data tell only one.

References

[1] Boyce, J. K. (1993). The political economy of growth and impoverishment in the Marcos era. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press.

[2] Punongbayan, JC and Mandrilla, Kevin. "Marcos years marked 'golden age' of PH economy? Look at the data" in Rappler https://www.rappler.com/views/imho/124682-marcos-economy-golden-age-philippines

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Some argue that though abuses were indeed committed during Martial Law, life was good for those who did not try to fight the government. In fact, there are those who claim that the Marcos era was a Golden Age for the Philippines, characterized by booming infrastructure and a tiger economy.

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Bumaba ang real wages sa panahon ng BM habang tumataas ang inflation

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Bumaba ang real wages sa panahon ng BM habang tumataas ang inflation

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Mula 14% noong 1972, tumaas hanggang 32.3% and inflation noong 1983 habang walang epekto ang pagtaas ng nominal wage dahil sa kasabay na pagtaas ng inflation at pagbaba ng purchasing power ng peso (Center for Labor Studies, 1984)

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Shortly after academics slammed his "revisionist" view, defeated vice presidential aspirant Bongbong Marcos denied having said that the years of his father, the dictator Ferdinand, were the Philippines' golden age. But on the campaign trail last year, Marcos Jr. did fuel the myth by praising his father's "good work" which for him continues to benefit the people.

The prosperity myth has endured for decades despite a peaceful revolution that drove the autocrat from power. Marcos supporters usually back their view with mini-narratives on the narrow peso-to-dollar conversion rate, growth in early Marcos years, free-flowing traffic, enthusiastic government spending and the country's regional competitiveness, among others.

Experts such as Cesar Polvorosa Jr. of Canada's Humber Business School say, however, that economic performance under any given administration should be measured by the sustainability of growth and its benefits to the general population.

"Other aspects of economic policymaking simply follow from those two major issues. Promoting economic growth enhances employment and livelihood opportunities," Polvorosa wrote last year.

UNDER MARCOS

-1960'S-

Campaign period (Overspending, raiding of public treasury)

ISI stagnant

-1970'S-

Martial law

-1980'S-

*Based on 'The Philippine Economy: Development, Policies and Challenges' (2003) by Arsenio Balisacan and Hall Hill, Oxford University Press

Retelling the tragedy necessarily starts with a picture of the economy in a dismal state, worse than it had ever been, in the years leading to the ouster of the Marcos family in 1986. It is a story of debt, deprivation and the spoils of a dictatorship.

Debts and downturns

The country was deep in debt-owing $24 billion by 1984 to be exact-with major businesses having absorbed much funding despite lacking in productivity. Massive government construction projects remained either unfinished or without immediate socioeconomic yield. There was a broad gap in incomes of the richest and poorest, while prices of goods skyrocketed. Only a few families controlled and benefited from key industries. The list went on.

Economists from the University of the Philippines led by Emmanuel de Dios sought answers on the crisis felt then. Was it mainly an effect of external shocks, as Marcos supporters claimed? Was it because of the assassination of opposition leader Sen. Ninoy Aquino in 1983? Or was the downturn primarily due to Marcos' policies and abuses?

They found all three factors playing a role, but the explanation that best satisfied their inquiries pointed to a concentration of power in government and its economic policies that dug deeper and deeper holes.

"While the Philippines experienced more or less the same external shocks as other developing countries, there is a residual variation in its performance and response which makes it fall below the average for countries in its class," they wrote.

Needless to say, the economy did not simply sink overnight.

Myth: The region's powerhouse

In the 1950s, the Philippines was second to Japan in terms of per capita income in the region. The country enjoyed moderate economic growth alongside its neighbors while focusing on imports. A common anachronism today's apologists commit is to label this relatively prosperous time part of the "Marcos period."

Marcos assumed the presidency only in 1965, when things started to spiral downward in the late 1960s as existing policies no longer encouraged rapid growth. The would-be dictator then pursued an aggressive, expensive run for a second term by foraying into the public treasury to boost his campaign, buy votes and threaten voters. The peso crashed in late 1969, and by the dawn of the following year it lost half its value, Conrado de Quiros wrote in "Dead Aim."

The 1960s crisis, for economists Arsenio Balisacan and Hall Hill, "was triggered by one politician's particularly shameless efforts to maintain a grasp on the reins of the political machinery."

Among its peers, the country could no longer keep up. "While the Philippines started with the highest growth rates for [Southeast Asia] in 1950-1960 (3.6 percent annually), it lagged behind its neighbors in 1960-1970," economists De Dios, Dante Canlas, Solita Monsod and their fellow U.P. economists wrote.

THEN AND NOW:

Source: * An Analysis of the Philippine Economic Crisis' (1984) edited by Emmanuel de Dios, University of the Philippines; World Development Indicators

To deal with external shocks and a campaign spree that ingested ridiculous amounts in the guise of government projects, the country resorted to debt, and according to the U.S. Library of Congress, was behind by $2.3 billion in payment due in the early 1970s. Then came a pattern of chronic borrowing, devaluation of the peso which bloated prices of goods, and reckless spending.

Myth: A spectacular economy and showmanship

More debts were incurred to pay outstanding debts and to stimulate the economy. The debt-fueled boom in the early 1970s coupled with sweeping reforms and infrastructure programs deceived many, providing the semblance of stability Marcos needed to calm the business elite after he placed the country under martial law.

"The trouble with debt-driven growth with populist tendencies is that it produces a buoyant economic environment-at least in the beginning. As long as the facade of investment for competitiveness is still there, then investors continue to pour money into the economy, which keeps it growing," Harvard-trained economist Ronald Mendoza, dean of the Ateneo School of Government, explained to Philstar.com.

"Initially, it looks very good," Mendoza admitted. "It doesn't take rocket science to figure out that the country's debt-driven growth was a party that would soon end, once investors figured out that despite the mounting debt, the country failed to effectively invest in key infrastructure and competitiveness-enhancing projects."

The 1970s saw the kind of progress without momentum. As then Social Security System chief Adrian Cristobal told Harvard University fellow William Overholt, "It was like an old lady taking off her girdle. Everything just fell out."

The regime's initial reforms turned upside down as institutions bowed to corruption, red tape, inefficiency and Marcos-led cronyism. His development strategies and trade policies were likewise incoherent, not to mention the padding of debt mainly for a gamut of projects that required large funding despite little gain.

Overholt said these included hosting of ostentatious international meetings. International Monetary Fund delegates, for example, were each assigned a brand new Mercedes Benz that was afterward sold as a second-hand car.

The wastefulness could not be exaggerated. Explaining the capital-output ratio at the time, Overholt said it was typical for Asia-Pacific countries to spend $2 to $4 to raise national output by $1. But the Philippines was spending $9 for every buck.

It was typical for Asia-Pacific countries to spend $2 to $4 to raise national ouput by $1. But the Philippines was spending $9 for every dollar.

Debt climbed to $17.2 billion by 1980, and the rate of gross national product-which measures the total value of production-took a dive. Already crippled, the Philippines was gasping for air when world recession hit and its exports suffered way worse than those of its neighbors.

"External factors could help trigger a crisis; but domestic fundamentals (or the lack of it) will dictate resilience to these external shocks. For the most part, I think the crisis in the Philippines was largely man-made-the external shocks merely exposed them," Ateneo Dean Ronald Mendoza said in an online interview with Philstar.com.

Filipinos today are able to look back and understand what happened, but in those years even the experts misinterpreted the signals of an impending crisis by the end of 1983.

Myth: Aquino's assassination to blame

In 1983, Aquino, the staunch Marcos critic, returned to the Philippines from exile and was killed on the tarmac as he alighted from the plane. As a result, foreign banks lost confidence in the regime and refused to grant further borrowings, De Dios wrote. This explains why Martial Law advocates to this day blame Aquino's return and death for economic misfortunes in the latter Marcos years.

"All it took was a crisis to expose these weaknesses and for the facade of democracy to unravel."

- Ronald Mendoza, economist

For Mendoza, the senator's assassination played a role in triggering "what was already a simmering political and economic crisis."

"But if it wasn't the assassination of Ninoy, it would have been something else, perhaps."

The economist said the weakening of institutions under Marcos had by then taken its toll. The institutional cracks included the lack of independence of the central bank, weaknesses in competitive bidding for government projects, rent-seeking and cronyism in government subsidies for industrial policy and outright plunder of the public purse.

"All it took was a crisis to expose these weaknesses and for the facade of democracy to unravel," Mendoza said.

Spoils of dictatorship

Tasked to recover what was believed to be the strongman's hidden wealth, the Philippine Commission on Good Government set to work by going after agents working for Marcos in the Philippines and abroad. The PCGG was among the first bodies President Corazon Aquino formed after Marcos was overthrown through "people power."

The Jovito Salonga-led commission uncovered a trail to what appeared to be vast assets of Marcos "stretching from a small Texas motel to a San Francisco bank, from a glitzy Manhattan shopping mall to a block of apartment buildings in downtown Seattle," the Los Angeles Times reported in 1986.

As president, Marcos earned a yearly salary of $4,700 or about P100,000, and was not part of the traditional elite before becoming a politician. How he came to be worth billions of dollars by the end of his rule was seen as a sign of how he used martial law to line his pockets.

As dictator, Marcos wrote letters of instruction and decrees to position his cronies-as his associates came to be called-to set up monopolies of key industries. Even as he gained popular support for attacking the ruling class he called the "oligarchy," Marcos ironically created a loyal new elite controlling the country's largest enterprises.

"Some are smarter than others," Marcos' wife, Imelda, famously answered when Fortune magazine asked her about relatives and friends who grew rich during the period.

Loyal Marcos backer Roberto Benedicto took over the lucrative sugar industry, while Eduardo Cojuangco led a powerful crony corporation sitting on taxes from coconut farmers. "By the 1980s, the 'coco levy' would become one of the major issues against the dictatorship, the term connoting its most rapacious aspects," wrote business journalist Rigoberto Tiglao in 1988.

Historian Alfred McCoy said Imelda's brother, Benjamin Romualdez, took control of P5.7 million in holdings of the influential Lopez family, including the largest power distributor Meralco, newspapers and television studios, for a mere $1,500.

Marcos allowed a handful of families to cinch monopolies and semi-monopolies in manufacturing, construction, finance and other important sectors of the economy, which were even favored with tax cuts and other privileges. When these select corporations proved unprofitable and inefficient, the government loaned millions to keep them going.

The massive bailouts for failed crony businesses and the earnings from sugar and coconut exports placed in foreign banks were critical factors leading to another economic disaster. While this caused much resentment among a portion of the business community, it was the most vulnerable and voiceless that were hit the hardest.

After all, many of the crony business leaders continued to hold levers of power even after the dictator was deposed in 1986, Canada-based economist Polvorosa observed.

The captain at the helm not only caused the ship to sink, he also managed to swim away with a sizeable loot for himself.

And the poor were poorer

Myth: 'Mas madali ang buhay noon'

Women started to seek jobs in the mid-1970s due to the decline in their husbands' income.

Some Filipinos today recall that life was "simpler"-even better-during Marcos's years. But these anecdotes are nowhere reflected when looking at the hard data on the population's welfare.

About 42 percent of Filipinos were considered poor in the 1960s when Marcos rose to power. In 1971, the year before Marcos declared martial law, poverty incidence rose to 52 percent. By the time Marcos approached the end of his 21-year rule, already three of five Filipinos (59 percent) were poor.

Income distribution also worsened during Martial Law, with the poorest segment of society seeing a decline in their share of the total income between 1971 and 1979. The richest 10 percent, on the other hand, enjoyed a much larger piece of the pie.

Shifts in employment in those years get even interesting. De Dios and fellow economists observed an "unusually high" expansion of labor supply, or the number of people available for work.

This was due to housewives who started to seek jobs in the mid-1970s-a phenomenon attributed not necessarily to women empowerment, but to the decline in husbands' income below what used to be enough for their families' subsistence.

The economy today is dramatically better than the Marcos economy; but without inclusion, many of our citizens probably can't tell the difference.

- Ronald Mendoza, economist

From 1978 to 1983, the number of workers without jobs increased from 800,000 to 1.2 million. But the figure for underemployment was more shameful, going from 1.6 million to 5.6 million.

How people could afford goods also suffered from dramatic swings in inflation. While an annual inflation rate of 1 to 4 percent is considered respectable today, in the 1970s, it sprang to double digits.

This was partly ascribed to roiling external conditions, but a comparison of the Philippines' performance with those of its neighbors suggests that high inflation rate and lower economic growth "could have been avoided and could be attributed, not to the general problems of a developing country, but to the character of the policies of the present government," De Dios and colleagues explained in 1984.

If a critical measure of an economy's performance is its trickle-down effect, then the Martial Law enablers miserably failed.

Challenges of inclusion, however, continue to this day. For Dean Ronald Mendoza, this has likely made the Marcos prosperity myth endure for decades even when the economy has grown dramatically better.

"I think the Marcos myth persists largely because we have failed to effectively push in the Post-Marcos era the key or deep institutional reforms, notably political and economic reforms that could make our politics and economy much more inclusive," Mendoza explained.

"Understandably, many are tempted by shortcuts and strongman rule, instead of faithfully building the institutions that could strengthen our democracy and economy.

"The economy today is dramatically better than the Marcos economy; but without inclusion, many of our citizens probably can't tell the difference," he added. - Philstar.com NewsLab with reports from Audrey Morallo

Shortly after academics slammed his "revisionist" view, defeated vice presidential aspirant Bongbong Marcos denied having said that the years of his father, the dictator Ferdinand, were the Philippines' golden age. But on the campaign trail last year, Marcos Jr. did fuel the myth by praising his father's "good work" which for him continues to benefit the people.

The prosperity myth has endured for decades despite a peaceful revolution that drove the autocrat from power. Marcos supporters usually back their view with mini-narratives on the narrow peso-to-dollar conversion rate, growth in early Marcos years, free-flowing traffic, enthusiastic government spending and the country's regional competitiveness, among others.

Experts such as Cesar Polvorosa Jr. of Canada's Humber Business School say, however, that economic performance under any given administration should be measured by the sustainability of growth and its benefits to the general population.

"Other aspects of economic policymaking simply follow from those two major issues. Promoting economic growth enhances employment and livelihood opportunities," Polvorosa wrote last year.

UNDER MARCOS

-1960'S-

Campaign period (Overspending, raiding of public treasury)

ISI stagnant

-1970'S-

Martial law

-1980'S-

*Based on 'The Philippine Economy: Development, Policies and Challenges' (2003) by Arsenio Balisacan and Hall Hill, Oxford University Press

Retelling the tragedy necessarily starts with a picture of the economy in a dismal state, worse than it had ever been, in the years leading to the ouster of the Marcos family in 1986. It is a story of debt, deprivation and the spoils of a dictatorship.

Debts and downturns

The country was deep in debt-owing $24 billion by 1984 to be exact-with major businesses having absorbed much funding despite lacking in productivity. Massive government construction projects remained either unfinished or without immediate socioeconomic yield. There was a broad gap in incomes of the richest and poorest, while prices of goods skyrocketed. Only a few families controlled and benefited from key industries. The list went on.

Economists from the University of the Philippines led by Emmanuel de Dios sought answers on the crisis felt then. Was it mainly an effect of external shocks, as Marcos supporters claimed? Was it because of the assassination of opposition leader Sen. Ninoy Aquino in 1983? Or was the downturn primarily due to Marcos' policies and abuses?

Was the economic disaster mainly an effect of external shocks? Was it because of the assassination of opposition leader Sen. Ninoy Aquino in 1983? Or was the downturn primarily due to Marcos' policies and abuses?

Presidential Museum and Library PH

They found all three factors playing a role, but the explanation that best satisfied their inquiries pointed to a concentration of power in government and its economic policies that dug deeper and deeper holes.

"While the Philippines experienced more or less the same external shocks as other developing countries, there is a residual variation in its performance and response which makes it fall below the average for countries in its class," they wrote.

Needless to say, the economy did not simply sink overnight.

Myth: The region's powerhouse

In the 1950s, the Philippines was second to Japan in terms of per capita income in the region. The country enjoyed moderate economic growth alongside its neighbors while focusing on imports. A common anachronism today's apologists commit is to label this relatively prosperous time part of the "Marcos period."

Marcos assumed the presidency only in 1965, when things started to spiral downward in the late 1960s as existing policies no longer encouraged rapid growth. The would-be dictator then pursued an aggressive, expensive run for a second term by foraying into the public treasury to boost his campaign, buy votes and threaten voters. The peso crashed in late 1969, and by the dawn of the following year it lost half its value, Conrado de Quiros wrote in "Dead Aim."

The 1960s crisis, for economists Arsenio Balisacan and Hall Hill, "was triggered by one politician's particularly shameless efforts to maintain a grasp on the reins of the political machinery."

Among its peers, the country could no longer keep up. "While the Philippines started with the highest growth rates for [Southeast Asia] in 1950-1960 (3.6 percent annually), it lagged behind its neighbors in 1960-1970," economists De Dios, Dante Canlas, Solita Monsod and their fellow U.P. economists wrote.

THEN AND NOW:

Source: * An Analysis of the Philippine Economic Crisis' (1984) edited by Emmanuel de Dios, University of the Philippines; World Development Indicators

To deal with external shocks and a campaign spree that ingested ridiculous amounts in the guise of government projects, the country resorted to debt, and according to the U.S. Library of Congress, was behind by $2.3 billion in payment due in the early 1970s. Then came a pattern of chronic borrowing, devaluation of the peso which bloated prices of goods, and reckless spending.

Myth: A spectacular economy and showmanship

More debts were incurred to pay outstanding debts and to stimulate the economy. The debt-fueled boom in the early 1970s coupled with sweeping reforms and infrastructure programs deceived many, providing the semblance of stability Marcos needed to calm the business elite after he placed the country under martial law.

"The trouble with debt-driven growth with populist tendencies is that it produces a buoyant economic environment-at least in the beginning. As long as the facade of investment for competitiveness is still there, then investors continue to pour money into the economy, which keeps it growing," Harvard-trained economist Ronald Mendoza, dean of the Ateneo School of Government, explained to Philstar.com.

"Initially, it looks very good," Mendoza admitted. "It doesn't take rocket science to figure out that the country's debt-driven growth was a party that would soon end, once investors figured out that despite the mounting debt, the country failed to effectively invest in key infrastructure and competitiveness-enhancing projects."

The 1970s saw the kind of progress without momentum. As then Social Security System chief Adrian Cristobal told Harvard University fellow William Overholt, "It was like an old lady taking off her girdle. Everything just fell out."

The regime's initial reforms turned upside down as institutions bowed to corruption, red tape, inefficiency and Marcos-led cronyism. His development strategies and trade policies were likewise incoherent, not to mention the padding of debt mainly for a gamut of projects that required large funding despite little gain.

Overholt said these included hosting of ostentatious international meetings. International Monetary Fund delegates, for example, were each assigned a brand new Mercedes Benz that was afterward sold as a second-hand car.

The wastefulness could not be exaggerated. Explaining the capital-output ratio at the time, Overholt said it was typical for Asia-Pacific countries to spend $2 to $4 to raise national output by $1. But the Philippines was spending $9 for every buck.

Debt climbed to $17.2 billion by 1980, and the rate of gross national product-which measures the total value of production-took a dive. Already crippled, the Philippines was gasping for air when world recession hit and its exports suffered way worse than those of its neighbors.

"External factors could help trigger a crisis; but domestic fundamentals (or the lack of it) will dictate resilience to these external shocks. For the most part, I think the crisis in the Philippines was largely man-made-the external shocks merely exposed them," Ateneo Dean Ronald Mendoza said in an online interview with Philstar.com.

Filipinos today are able to look back and understand what happened, but in those years even the experts misinterpreted the signals of an impending crisis by the end of 1983.

Myth: Aquino's assassination to blame

In 1983, Aquino, the staunch Marcos critic, returned to the Philippines from exile and was killed on the tarmac as he alighted from the plane. As a result, foreign banks lost confidence in the regime and refused to grant further borrowings, De Dios wrote. This explains why Martial Law advocates to this day blame Aquino's return and death for economic misfortunes in the latter Marcos years.

For Mendoza, the senator's assassination played a role in triggering "what was already a simmering political and economic crisis."

"But if it wasn't the assassination of Ninoy, it would have been something else, perhaps."

The economist said the weakening of institutions under Marcos had by then taken its toll. The institutional cracks included the lack of independence of the central bank, weaknesses in competitive bidding for government projects, rent-seeking and cronyism in government subsidies for industrial policy and outright plunder of the public purse.

"All it took was a crisis to expose these weaknesses and for the facade of democracy to unravel," Mendoza said.

Spoils of dictatorship

Tasked to recover what was believed to be the strongman's hidden wealth, the Philippine Commission on Good Government set to work by going after agents working for Marcos in the Philippines and abroad. The PCGG was among the first bodies President Corazon Aquino formed after Marcos was overthrown through "people power."

The Jovito Salonga-led commission uncovered a trail to what appeared to be vast assets of Marcos "stretching from a small Texas motel to a San Francisco bank, from a glitzy Manhattan shopping mall to a block of apartment buildings in downtown Seattle," the Los Angeles Times reported in 1986.

As president, Marcos earned a yearly salary of $4,700 or about P100,000, and was not part of the traditional elite before becoming a politician. How he came to be worth billions of dollars by the end of his rule was seen as a sign of how he used martial law to line his pockets.

As dictator, Marcos wrote letters of instruction and decrees to position his cronies-as his associates came to be called-to set up monopolies of key industries. Even as he gained popular support for attacking the ruling class he called the "oligarchy," Marcos ironically created a loyal new elite controlling the country's largest enterprises.

"Some are smarter than others," Marcos' wife, Imelda, famously answered when Fortune magazine asked her about relatives and friends who grew rich during the period.

Some are smarter than others.

- Imelda Marcos to Fortune magazine on her friends who grew rich

Loyal Marcos backer Roberto Benedicto took over the lucrative sugar industry, while Eduardo Cojuangco led a powerful crony corporation sitting on taxes from coconut farmers. "By the 1980s, the 'coco levy' would become one of the major issues against the dictatorship, the term connoting its most rapacious aspects," wrote business journalist Rigoberto Tiglao in 1988.

Historian Alfred McCoy said Imelda's brother, Benjamin Romualdez, took control of P5.7 million in holdings of the influential Lopez family, including the largest power distributor Meralco, newspapers and television studios, for a mere $1,500.

Marcos allowed a handful of families to cinch monopolies and semi-monopolies in manufacturing, construction, finance and other important sectors of the economy, which were even favored with tax cuts and other privileges. When these select corporations proved unprofitable and inefficient, the government loaned millions to keep them going.

The massive bailouts for failed crony businesses and the earnings from sugar and coconut exports placed in foreign banks were critical factors leading to another economic disaster. While this caused much resentment among a portion of the business community, it was the most vulnerable and voiceless that were hit the hardest.

After all, many of the crony business leaders continued to hold levers of power even after the dictator was deposed in 1986, Canada-based economist Polvorosa observed.

The captain at the helm not only caused the ship to sink, he also managed to swim away with a sizeable loot for himself.

And the poor were poorer

Myth: 'Mas madali ang buhay noon'

Women started to seek jobs in the mid-1970s due to the decline in their husbands' income.

Some Filipinos today recall that life was "simpler"-even better-during Marcos's years. But these anecdotes are nowhere reflected when looking at the hard data on the population's welfare.

About 42 percent of Filipinos were considered poor in the 1960s when Marcos rose to power. In 1971, the year before Marcos declared martial law, poverty incidence rose to 52 percent. By the time Marcos approached the end of his 21-year rule, already three of five Filipinos (59 percent) were poor.

Income distribution also worsened during Martial Law, with the poorest segment of society seeing a decline in their share of the total income between 1971 and 1979. The richest 10 percent, on the other hand, enjoyed a much larger piece of the pie.

Shifts in employment in those years get even interesting. De Dios and fellow economists observed an "unusually high" expansion of labor supply, or the number of people available for work.

This was due to housewives who started to seek jobs in the mid-1970s-a phenomenon attributed not necessarily to women empowerment, but to the decline in husbands' income below what used to be enough for their families' subsistence.

The economy today is dramatically better than the Marcos economy; but without inclusion, many of our citizens probably can't tell the difference.

- Ronald Mendoza, economist

From 1978 to 1983, the number of workers without jobs increased from 800,000 to 1.2 million. But the figure for underemployment was more shameful, going from 1.6 million to 5.6 million.

How people could afford goods also suffered from dramatic swings in inflation. While an annual inflation rate of 1 to 4 percent is considered respectable today, in the 1970s, it sprang to double digits.

This was partly ascribed to roiling external conditions, but a comparison of the Philippines' performance with those of its neighbors suggests that high inflation rate and lower economic growth "could have been avoided and could be attributed, not to the general problems of a developing country, but to the character of the policies of the present government," De Dios and colleagues explained in 1984.

If a critical measure of an economy's performance is its trickle-down effect, then the Martial Law enablers miserably failed.

Challenges of inclusion, however, continue to this day. For Dean Ronald Mendoza, this has likely made the Marcos prosperity myth endure for decades even when the economy has grown dramatically better.

"I think the Marcos myth persists largely because we have failed to effectively push in the Post-Marcos era the key or deep institutional reforms, notably political and economic reforms that could make our politics and economy much more inclusive," Mendoza explained.

"Understandably, many are tempted by shortcuts and strongman rule, instead of faithfully building the institutions that could strengthen our democracy and economy.

"The economy today is dramatically better than the Marcos economy; but without inclusion, many of our citizens probably can't tell the difference," he added. - Philstar.com NewsLab with reports from Audrey Morallo

31 YEARS OF AMNESIA

stories on the myths that made Marcos

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Debt, deprivation and spoils of dictatorship | 31 years of amnesia

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Shortly after academics slammed his "revisionist" view, defeated vice presidential aspirant Bongbong Marcos denied having said that the years of his father, the dictator Ferdinand, were the Philippines' golden age. But on the campaign trail last year, Marcos Jr. did fuel the myth by praising his father's "good work" which for him continues to benefit the people.

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https://news.abs-cbn.com/focus/09/21/18/by-the-numbers-human-rights-violations-during-marcos-rule

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National Historical Commission of the Philippines