MARCOS-ERA GOLD REPORTED MISSING, SOURCE LA TIMES MARCH 16, 1986

Marcos-Era Gold Reported Missing : Philippines Tracing Flow of Millions in Bullion, Cash and Illegal Profits BY MARK FINEMAN MARCH 16, 1986 12 AM PT TIMES STAFF WRITER MANILA —  At least seven tons of gold worth more than $75 million reportedly disappeared from the inventories of the Philippine national treasury in the seven years after President Ferdinand E. Marcos took direct control of the processing and distribution of gold mined in the Philippines. During those same years, Marcos’ family and friends are believed to have amassed tens of millions of dollars in illegal profits from unauthorized logging operations that have left much of the country’s jungle and forest a barren wasteland. Also, Marcos and his friends are believed to have siphoned off hundreds of millions of dollars in cash from the treasury, either through the creation of private corporations and quasi-governmental institutions that never repaid government loans or by simply removing money at will from discretionary funds Marcos created in several of his ministries. Poring Over Records All this has been disclosed by ministers and auditors of the new government of President Corazon Aquino in interviews with The Times. In the 2 1/2 weeks since the Aquino government came to power, these people have been poring over the books and records Marcos and his family left behind when they fled to the United States on Feb. 25. The ministry audits, which are being carried out in addition to inventories the new government is preparing on the Marcos family holdings here and abroad, are nowhere near complete. But a pattern is emerging that shows not only what Marcos owns but how he came to own it--how one man and his family amassed fortunes that total between $5 billion and $10 billion, according to officials in the new government. Mansions, Office Towers Every day since Marcos surrendered a job that officially paid him about $5,000 a year, the Philippine people have been hit with new reports of the deposed president’s wealth--mansions and office towers in New York, California, New Jersey and Texas; scores of crates containing gold and cash on board the plane that carried the Marcos party to Hawaii; dozens of boxes filled with gold coins, priceless jewelry and art objects removed from the presidential palace since Marcos’ flight; wardrobes so extensive that, in just one closet of Imelda Marcos’ bedroom, government auditors found 500 identical, imported black brassieres. ‘Raped, Robbed’ Nation The Aquino government’s investigation into how the Marcoses acquired so much wealth has been much quieter. But, according to many analysts here, it says a great deal about the way Marcos led a country of 54 million people whose per capita income is $625 a year. Ernesto Maceda, who served in the Cabinet under Marcos and is minister of natural resources in the Aquino government, said the other day of the Marcos era: “This was a government that raped its own country of its rich resources and directly robbed the nation’s treasury to enrich just one man and his family and friends. “From gold and timber to coconuts and sugar, they kept creating new ways and new conduits to take things out of the country for themselves, and they very nearly mortgaged the future of the country in the process.” According to independent Filipino and Western analysts in Manila, at the outset of his two decades in power, Marcos set up structures of administration and operation that made possible the accumulation of vast private wealth. System ‘Well Oiled’ “The entire economic structure here was set up not to stimulate overall growth for the nation, but to produce rents that people could scrape off the top,” said a senior Western diplomat who had intimate knowledge of Marcos and his government. “It was a system that was very much in place on every level, and it was a system that was very well oiled.” It is alleged, and widely believed, that the system involved routine official bribery. Filipino and foreign businessmen have said publicly that corporations had to pay huge cash commissions to Marcos and his ministers in order to do business in the Philippines. But the corruption went far beyond that, and it was all grounded in Marcos’ virtually unbridled political power. He personally appointed every minister and judge; he wrote and rewrote the constitution; and, until his last few days here, he controlled the armed forces. Even Marcos’ harshest critics concede that in his first eight years as president, he was honest. It was not until he declared martial law in 1972 that he consolidated his power, dissolving Parliament, setting up military courts and assuming the power to rule by decree, without checks or balances. Although Marcos lifted martial law in 1981, he retained most of the authoritarian powers he had held under it. And by then he had filled every position of power outside the presidency with a close ally. Rich in Gold According to Maceda and other members of the new Cabinet, the gold industry typifies the way Marcos and his associates enriched themselves. The Philippines has long been considered a potentially major gold producer, with proven reserves of 80 million tons of gold ore and an estimated 120 million more tons in probable and exploratory reserves. For many years, private mining companies and individual operators sold their gold ore to private export firms or to the government. The ore was sent to England and the United States, where it was refined and converted into bullion that helped support the Philippine currency. Initially, “the whole system was in private hands,” Maceda said. “There was no easy way Marcos could get at it.” But in 1978, under martial law, Marcos ordered the entire system placed in the hands of the government. By decree, Marcos ruled that all gold mined in the Philippines had to be sold to the Central Bank, which built a refinery to process it. Marcos said the change was meant to bolster the Philippine economy by preventing the transfer of gold to foreign firms and by building up the Philippines’ foreign exchange. Also, he said, it saved the treasury the expense of refining abroad. “In reality,” Maceda said, “what Marcos did was position himself to steal as much as he wanted without anyone knowing.” Gold Unaccounted For According to hundreds of pages of reports submitted to the Bureau of Mines by private mining firms and the Central Bank, the government refined a total of 124,234 pounds of gold mined between April 17, 1978, when the new system took effect, and the end of 1984, the last year for which statistics are available. But the Central Bank, in annual reports covering the same period, has accounted for only 110,319 pounds of the gold--13,915 pounds less than it bought. “Those two figures should be the same,” Juanito Fernandez, director of the Bureau of Mines, said. “That big a difference can only mean one thing--the gold has somehow been diverted from the treasury.” And according to Maceda, who last week started an investigation to find the missing gold, “only Marcos and his cronies could have had access to it. I suppose the bulk of it is already . . . in Switzerland.” The charge is supported by some indications that Marcos may have taken large quantities of gold out of the country. There have been reports from Hawaii that gold bars were among the personal goods the U.S. Air Force moved out of Manila for the Marcoses two weeks ago, although U.S. Customs officials have declined to comment. Auditors who inventoried every item the Marcoses left behind in the palace filled 51 large boxes with Philippine commemorative gold coins, which are minted for the Central Bank from gold mined in the country under a contract with British and American government mints. Can’t Explain Discrepancy Officials at the Central Bank’s gold refinery could not explain the discrepancy between the two figures last week. Supt. Cesar Lomotan said there has never been a theft from the refinery or from the armored trucks and commercial airliners that transport the gold to official buyers and banks. Lomotan, who has supervised the refinery since 1981, said he is certain that he can account for all the gold that has been bought and refined. When he was asked how Marcos could have acquired the gold found in his possession, Lomotan suggested that he may have bought it illegally outside the Central Bank system. In a separate report last week, the Philippine Chamber of Mines, a private association that includes gold mining corporations, said an additional $220 million in gold bullion had been sold on the black market outside the Central Bank system since 1978, and Maceda said he was investigating whether Marcos obtained any of that gold as well. Maceda said the gold discrepancy is just one of several indications that Marcos and those close to him exploited the country’s natural resources for personal gain. Auditors have documented at least $50 million in profits made by Marcos’ friends and relatives in illegal logging operations, Maceda said. He said this has reduced the virgin forest area to 2 million hectares, about 5 million acres, down from more than 30 million acres 20 years ago. In a single raid last week at a logging firm owned by Marcos’ brother-in-law, Marcelino Barba, authorities found more than $100,000 worth of illegally cut timber that had been felled in the previous few weeks. Favoritism to Cronies According to Maceda, Marcos also showed favoritism in awarding the 170 highly coveted legal timber concessions in the country. He said auditors have traced the great majority of them to the families of Marcos and his senior Cabinet ministers. Other ministers in the new government said the large-scale diversion of government assets under Marcos went far beyond physical resources. Some of it, Budget Minister Alberto Romulo said in an interview, was simply “the blatant theft of cold, hard cash.” Romulo said last week at Aquino’s first Cabinet meeting that Marcos, in his last two months in power, “raided” the government treasury of hundreds of millions of dollars to pay off local officials and voters for their part in the Feb. 7 presidential election campaign. He said this left the new government with a budget deficit of $250 million for the first quarter of 1986. “But the main way they got the money,” Romulo said, “was through various financial institutions and corporations they created. They siphoned the money off from the budget--first into these corporations, and then into their own pockets.” Assets Were Transferred After receiving large quantities of government equity contributions, advances and subsidies, Romulo said, the corporations they created would gradually transfer the assets to personal accounts and ultimately declare the corporations bankrupt, leaving the government holding a corporate shell and hundreds of millions of dollars in bad loans. Romulo said it will be several weeks before his and other ministries complete their audits and publish the names of the corporations and principals involved. Several reports have been published in the last several years on large banks, transportation companies and deluxe hotels owned and managed by Marcos’ family and friends that were given millions of dollars in government subsidies before they gradually were drained of their assets, forced into bankruptcy and turned back to the government. Raul Daza, a member of a government commission investigating the extent and origins of Marcos’ wealth, described the general scheme to reporters last week. But he said, “We don’t have anything specific (to make public) right now.” Delegation in U.S. The commission, which sent a delegation to the United States last week to lay the groundwork for recovering some of Marcos’ assets, has amassed thousands of pages of documents that the commission’s chairman, Jovito R. Salonga, says will detail many specific examples of the schemes. But despite this drain on the country’s resources, which economists blame in large part for the Philippines’ $25-billion national debt, most of Aquino’s ministers are optimistic about the future. “I don’t think Marcos and his cronies mortgaged it entirely,” Budget Minister Romulo said. “We are still very rich in resources, especially in human resources, and this new government is in a good position to progress right now. “We might have to tighten our belts for the next few months, but the trust and the confidence of the people is there. That alone is a great reservoir of hope.”

STORIES ABOUT THE CONJUGAL DICTATORSHIP

EDITORYAL | Yaman ng pamilya Marcos

Reporter's Notebook: Gaano kalaki ang ill-gotten wealth ng mga...

MARCOS LOYALIST HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THIS ? SEE WHO YOU WANTED TO BE BACK TO POWER.....

WHY A PHILIPPINE DICTATORSHIP IS SURE TO FAIL

WHY A PHILIPPINE DICTATORSHIP IS SURE TO FAIL Posted by The Society of Honor on December 7, 2016 · 1 Comment  By Joe America Let’s break the Philippine population into three major component parts. The entitled. Politicians who are trapos, oligarchs, movie stars, and others who get rich and powerful by working within the class of entitlement and impunity to share opportunities and trade favors. The Philippines even has judges in this class, reflecting the gross ethical bankruptcy of this group. The educated elite. University professors, middle business managers (if they are honest), politicians who believe in democracy, and people who have traveled enough, and read enough, to understand the importance of human rights, laws, and the discipline of good ethical behavior. They are wiser than most which arouses envy and generates resentment from those in the other two groups. The needful masses. Lower-level workers who see others doing better than them, commuters waiting in lines, farmers and fishermen who can barely survive, tricycle peddlers, mothers with seven kids, the hungry . .  and many, many more. There are a whole lot of people in this group. They operate more with emotions and superstition than knowledge. A lot of Duterte supporters, most notably Senator Cayetano, like to point to Singapore to justify President Duterte’s autocratic style. The Philippines is on the path to success, they say, because this kind of authoritarian might is needed to cut through the crap of corruption, drugs and entitlement. I’m gobsmacked. Never before in my life have I seen carabao pies packaged as perfume. The dictator Marcos and the aspiring dictator Duterte put their power base together on the strength of group (1) manipulating group (3). The powerful and entitled are using and abusing the needful and needy, while telling them otherwise. Well, that is a personal opinion, of course. Not everyone thinks it is abusive for Filipino cops to murder innocent Filipinos by the thousands. Perfume in the Philippines comes in many different stenches. The educated elite (2) are the opposition, the enemies, of this new authoritarian order. The “dictator” Lee Kuan Yew put together his power base on the strength of group (2), period. His agency officials were honest, educated managers. Technocrats, not family. Economists, not friends. They did not manipulate the needy and needful, they took care of them. Furthermore, Lee was actually Prime minister, re-elected repeatedly. He won based on performance, not threat. Singapore thrived. Marcos failed and dealt the nation into poverty for decades. Duterte is on the path to failure as he undermines the very foundations of the economy. Driving off the BPO’s, insulting nations that host Philippine OFWs and make material economic contributions in the Philippines, kicking out US intelligence resources and allowing terrorists an open, unprotected nation in which to plant bombs, driving off tourists by raising a terror warning nationwide, and portraying the Philippines as a drug infested cesspit. Investors hate risks and instability. Only those with ulterior motives like China consider the Philippines a good place to put money. The 2017 budget was put together, not to focus on economic production, jobs and wealth, but to advance political goals. Praise and punish, not return on investment. Over 2 billion is allocated for trolls, which, if you think about it, is a destructive business. It does not build anything. When the measure of productivity is 75 insults per 1,000 words, you know this is not a government focused on unity or reducing poverty. (I made those statistics up, to show how easily the propaganda artists generate new facts.) Lee Kuan Yew promoted promise and hope and opportunity, and built economic strength. The aspiring dictator Duterte promotes darkness and death and fear, and economic bankruptcy, or delivery of the nation to China. See the difference? If you don’t, kindly accept my condolences. President Ramos got it right. The ship is sinking. Social turmoil is building. Unity is not forming. The only question is how long the government can function on the strength of the economy that President Aquino left behind, new debt acquired that pushes back the day the last shoe falls, the amount of perfume sold by cabinet members and trolls to call black white, and help from China that converts the Philippines to a new state of colonialism. Protest is futile. Those with needs are blind in their desire for immediate satisfaction or revenge. Many of the entitled are also motivated by revenge . . . against civility. Jailing 9 year olds. Shooting innocents. Gleefully building a death state. It’s a hell of a way to uplift a nation. And no one in government is listening. SHARED FROM THE SOCIETY OF HONOR : THE PHILIPPINES

MEL STA. MARIA_After VP Robredo's resignation, watch the Supreme Court

To understand Vice President Robredo’s apprehension, it is inevitable that we have to start from the place where the ending may happen. And that place is the Supreme Court.      Under the Constitution, only the Supreme Court, as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal, can oust Leni Robredo from the vice presidency on the basis of the votes obtained in the election. Section 4 Article 7 of the 1987 Constitution provides that “the Supreme Court, sitting en banc, shall be the sole judge of all contests relating to the election, returns, and qualifications of the President or Vice-President, and may promulgate its rules for the purpose.” And it is quite reasonable to believe that one of the “events of the recent days” referred to by the Vice President may have been the promulgation of the Supreme Court -- through Associate Justices Peralta, Bersamin, Velasco, Brion, De Castro, Bernabe, Del Castillo, Mendoza and Perez – of that horrible decision allowing the dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos to be buried in the Libingan ng mga Bayani -- a decision which gave imprimatur to one of President Duterte’s campaign promises. Now, the dictator’s son Ferdinand (Bongbong) R. Marcos Jr. is banking on this same Supreme Court -- or at least a majority of its members -- to oust Vice President Leni Robredo and proclaim him as the winner for the position. This is not to say that he has no right to file an election protest. But  the incoherence of his position – the rejection of the result generated by the machine based on the people’s votes as to the vice presidency but acceptance of the same machine’s  result  insofar as the presidency is concerned, on the same ballot -- betrays its weakness. And, without the case still being heard on its merits, Bongbong smugly declared, “I will eventually take my seat that is being kept warm for me.” He should not have said that because it generated so many speculations. For instance, one wonders:  does this arrogance come from Bongbong’s sense of entitlement because he is a Marcos, or could this possibly be coming from something deeper, a more sinister, albeit for him reassuring, plan that will soon unravel before us? It is difficult to ignore President Duterte’s unapologetic support for the Marcoses. During his China state visit, President Duterte proudly introduced Bongbong as “the next vice-president if he wins his protest.” And this was made in the same sub-judice way the President publicly expressed his position favoring the Marcos burial even while the case was pending with the Supreme Court.  How much influence these sub-judice statements had on the majority of the Supreme Court justices in the burial-case was a serious and legitimate concern to many. Will it happen again in this Marcos-election-protest-case in the Supreme Court if indeed such sub judice statements are a factor? And surely, the justices of the Supreme Court are not unaware of the friendship between President Duterte and Bongbong. In fact, just after the election, President Duterte admitted that he offered Bongbong a cabinet position. “I promised him” President Duterte said in one encounter with media. Not only that. At that time, he did not want to appoint Leni Robredo to a cabinet position because he did  not wish to “hurt the feelings” of Bongbong. It seems that the President values his ties with the Marcoses over and above the prospects of fostering reconciliation, cooperation and inclusivity during his term. One other thing. The Supreme Court’s track record in cases involving high-profile political personalities appears to be ominous for Vice President Leni Robredo. This is the Supreme Court whose majority members are perceived -- rightly or wrongly -- to be always siding with the “elite,” the rich, the privileged, and/or people highly placed in the political ladder. And this perception has basis.  It acquitted former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and former First Lady Imelda Marcos, granted bail to Senator Juan Ponce Enrile, adjudged absolute pardon for former President Joseph Estrada, excused Mayor Junjun Binay from sanction despite abandonment of the “Condonation doctrine,” and decided that Congressman Ronald Singson cannot be ousted as a representative because his drug-related-conviction did not concern a crime involving moral turpitude.  This is also the Supreme Court whose majority ruled against the coconut farmers and in favor of Danding Cojuangco in the coco-levy case because, among others, there was no showing that the latter was one of the “close associates of President Marcos” -- prompting former Associate Justice Conchita Carpio-Morales, now the Ombudsman, to say that “the argument that Cojuangco was not the subordinate or close associate of the Marcoses is the biggest joke to hit the country.” And more recently, it is the Supreme Court which decided that the dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos, whose regime looted our national treasury and ushered in a period of summary execution, forced disappearance,  torture and gross violation of human rights against the Filipino people,  be buried in theLibingan ng mga Bayani.  Vice President Leni Robredo does not belong to the “elite,” the rich, or the powerful. She only has the people who voted for her as the source of her power. Given this Supreme Court perception, is it totally unjustified for people to be apprehensive as regards how the Supreme Court, sitting as an electoral tribunal, will decide the Vice Presidency and Leni’s fate?   I truly hope that the Supreme Court will come out with a decision truly uplifting our national spirit and affirming the sovereignty that resides on the people.    In the meantime, we seem to be paralyzed again by these latest developments,  and the need to process everything never appears to be fast enough for our brains to comprehend. We find ourselves asking once more,  “what now” and “what next”? Well, we should not  hold our breaths till we turn blue. We must think and act fast because eventually, it will affect us and the country. Yes, it is exhausting, and heaven knows it can be very frustrating. But at the end of the day, there are things which we simply cannot allow to happen again. So it is up to us to make sure that they do not. SHARED FROM

A son’s delusions

Mr. Lee wrote: “The Philippines was a world apart from us, running a different style of politics and government under an American military umbrella. It was not until January 1974 that I visited President Marcos in Manila. When my Singapore Airlines plane flew into Philippine airspace, a small squadron of Philippine Air Force jet fighters escorted it to Manila Airport. There Marcos received me in great style -- the Filipino way. I was put up at the guest wing of Malacañang Palace in lavishly furnished rooms, valuable objects of art bought in Europe strewn all over. Our hosts were gracious, extravagant in hospitality, flamboyant. “His (Marcos’) foreign minister, Carlos P. Romulo, was a small man... some 20 years my senior, with a ready wit and a self-deprecating manner about his size and other limitations... His good standing with ASEAN leaders and with Americans increased the prestige of the Marcos administration. Marcos had in Romulo a man of honor and integrity who helped give a gloss of respectability to his regime as it fell into disrepute in the 1980s. “In Bali in 1976, at the first ASEAN summit held after the fall of Saigon, I found Marcos keen to push for greater economic cooperation in ASEAN. Marcos and I agreed to implement a bilateral Philippines-Singapore across-the-board 10 percent reduction of existing tariffs on all products and to promote intra-ASEAN trade. We also agreed to lay a Philippines-Singapore submarine cable. I was to discover that for him, the communiqué was the accomplishment itself; its implementation was secondary, an extra to be discussed at another conference. “We met every two to three years. He once took me on a tour of his library at Malacañang, its shelves filled with bound volumes of newspapers reporting his activities over the years since he first stood for elections. There were encyclopedia-size volumes on the history and culture of the Philippines with his name as the author. His campaign medals as an anti-Japanese guerrilla leader were displayed in glass cupboards. Imelda, his wife, had a penchant for luxury and opulence. When they visited Singapore before the Bali summit they came in stye in two DC8’s, his and hers. “International outrage over the killing (of Ninoy Aquino) resulted in foreign banks stopping all loans to the Philippines, which owed over $25 billion and could not pay the interest due. This brought Marcos to the crunch. He sent his minister for trade and industry, Bobby Ongpin, to ask me for a loan of US$300-500 million to meet the interest payments. I looked him straight in the eye and said, ‘We will never see that money back.’ “Shortly afterward, in February 1984, Marcos met me in Brunei at the sultanate’s independence celebrations. He had undergone a dramatic physical change... He looked most unhealthy... Marcos spent much of the time giving me a most improbable story of how Aquino had been shot. “As soon as all our aides left, I went straight to the point, that no bank was going to lend him any money. They wanted to know who was going to succeed him if anything were to happen to him; all the bankers could see that he no longer looked healthy. Singapore banks had lent US$8 billion of the US$25 billion owing. The hard fact was they were not likely to get repayment for some 20 years. “He countered that it would be only eight years. I said the bankers wanted to see a strong leader in the Philippines who could restore stability, and the Americans hoped the election in May would throw up someone who could be such a leader. I asked whom he would nominate for the election. He said Prime Minister Cesar Virata. “Virata replied it had to do with ‘flow of money’; she would have more money than other candidates to pay for the votes needed for nomination by the party and to win the election. He added that if she were the candidate, the opposition would put up Mrs. Cory Aquino and work up the people’s feelings. He said the economy was going down with no political stability. “...[The] culture of the Filipino people. It is a soft, forgiving culture. Only in the Philippines could a leader like Ferdinand Marcos, who pillaged his country for over 20 years, still be considered for a national burial. Insignificant amounts of the loot have been recovered, yet his wife and children were allowed to return and engage in politics. They supported the winning presidential and congressional candidates with their considerable resources and reappeared in the political and social limelight after the 1998 election that returned President Joseph Estrada. “One Filipino newspaper, Today, wrote on 22 November 1998, ‘Ver, Marcos and the rest of the official family plunged the country into two decades of lies, torture, and plunder. Over the next decade, Marcos’s cronies and immediate family would tiptoe back into the country, one by one -- always to the public’s revulsion and disgust, though they showed that there was nothing that hidden money and thick hides could not withstand.’” I think Mr. Lee believed the writer of the Philippine newspaper, the now defunct Today, because he believed the writer was right. (I think the writer may have been Teddy Boy Locsin but I could be wrong.) There were other passages relating to the coup attempts that stunted the country’s recovery which I am reserving for a subsequent article. I decided to quote Mr. Lee extensively to inform Mr. Marcos that the very leader of the country his father was allegedly attempting to emulate did not think too highly of his father, much less his father’s ability to make the Philippines another Singapore. He should read the book. He will, perhaps, be more careful in his assertions. I quote Mr. Lee because there are people who believe the younger Marcos’s assertion that had we not rebelled against his father because of “political manipulation,” we would be a Singapore by now and so wish to put the son in grabbing distance of the presidency. They should read the book. Mario Antonio G. Lopez teaches at the Asian Institute of Management and consults for business, government and civil society maglopez@gmail.com shared from

RE- ENACTMENT OF MARCOS DICTATORSHIP CRONYISM TODAY

102ND PERSUASIVE APPEAL_2DEC16_TO THE SCP JUSTICES : NHCP's Diokno resigns over Marcos burial

NHCP's Diokno resigns over Marcos burial (3rd UPDATE) '[The Marcos burial] denies our history, erases the memory of lives lost and destroyed, mocks the collective action we took to oust the dictator, and denigrates the value of our struggle for freedom' In her resignation letter, Diokno condemned Marcos' burial and vowed to continue opposing it. "The burial of Ferdinand Marcos in the Libingan ng mga Bayani is wrong; it denies our history, erases the memory of lives lost and destroyed, mocks the collective action we took to oust the dictator, and denigrates the value of our struggle for freedom," she said. Diokno also slammed President Rodrigo Duterte, who ordered Marcos' burial, and the Supreme Court, which voted 9-5 in favor of the interment after petitions were filed to challenge Duterte's order. "At this moment in our history, every voice counts, and I wish to place mine on the side of history: not the history that the Duterte government ignores, but the history that beckons our people to demand justice that even the highest court of the land will not bestow," Diokno said. "Notwithstanding the narrow view adopted by 9 members of the Supreme Court, President Duterte could have taken the higher ground. But he chose not to. Worse, he justifies his 'legalistic' action by claiming, falsely, that 'there's no study, no movie about it [Marcos's record as a leader], just the challenges and allegations of the other side.'" Duterte has repeatedly said that Marcos deserves to be buried at the Libingan ng mga Bayani because he was a former president and soldier. (READ: Duterte on Marcos burial: Let history judge, I followed law) The NHCP under Diokno's leadership, however, previously expressed its opposition to the burial. The commission released a study disputing the late strongman's supposed record a a soldier during the World War II, which it said is "fraught with myths, factual inconsistencies, and lies." The NHCP pointed out that Marcos "lied about receiving the Distinguished Service Cross, Silver Star, and Order of the Purple Heart", a claim he supposedly made as early as 1945. In a recent Rappler interview, Diokno stressed the impact of burying the former dictator at the cemetery that is supposed to be the final resting place for heroes. "How do you explain to young people, to students [that] well, you know, there were so many questions – in fact, he lied about the medals – but, anyway, he belongs to the cemetery of heroes. There seems to be an incongruence there," Diokno said in an interview last August. "That's why history is important. You can move on after you have come to terms with the past. But if you bury the past – in this case, it would be, you literally bury it – I don't see how you can come to terms with it," she also said. "But in this case, there seems to be even a refusal to come to terms with the facts of the past." For Diokno, though, there is a ray of hope – the thousands of students who have taken to the streets and social media to express outrage over Marcos' burial. (READ: Students told after Marcos burial: 'Bigger lessons outside classroom') "For a moment I thought I could remain at the National Historical Commission of the Philippines and protect our history from those in and out of government who attempt to deface it," she said in her resignation letter. "But the multitude of especially young Filipinos who have come out in defense of history and are prepared to co-author it for their generation and the future point to one clear realization: they, we all, will guard our history." (READ: #ThankYouStScho: 'Please do not underestimate the youth') Diokno said she would join the anti-Marcos protest at the People Power Monument set for Wednesday, November 30. (READ: Schedule: November 30 rallies vs Marcos) "Tomorrow I will join the popular assertion of our history and look forward to more in as many public venues as possible," she said. "Never again will we allow any remnant of the authoritarian past to take hold of our country." READ: NHCP Chair Maria Serena Diokno's resignation letter @rapplerdotcom pic.twitter.com/S1Voi08ldI — Patty Pasion (@pattypasion) November 29, 2016 The NHCP head is the daughter of Filipino nationalist and late senator Jose "Ka Pepe" Diokno, who staunchly opposed the Marcos dictatorship. "Ka Pepe" was detained together with the late senator Benigno Aquino Jr in Fort Bonifacio for their hardline stance against the Marcos regime. Aside from Diokno, NHCP Commissioner Francis Gealogo also announced on Tuesday that he had resigned over Marcos' burial. Gealogo posted a photo of his resignation letter, dated November 19 and addressed to the President, on Facebook. "I believe that the Commission's stand opposing the burial of Ferdinand E. Marcos Sr at the Libingan ng mga Bayani is based on solid historical research and is made as part of the mandate of the Commission to clarify issues pertinent to historical questions that confront our society," Gealogo said in his letter. "I stand by the historical truth of the fact that the martyrs and victims of martial law should be the ones that we ought to recognize as the true heroes of our nation, and not the dictator who caused untold miseries and sufferings to our people." – with reports from Patty Pasion / Rappler.com shared from View image on Twitter

Another NHCP exec resigns over Marcos burial

MANILA - Another high-ranking official of the National Historical Commission of the Philippines (NHCP) resigned from his post in protest of the burial of the late strongman Ferdinand Marcos in the Libingan ng mga Bayani or Heroes' Cemetery. Commissioner Francis A. Gealogo, Ph.D posted a photo of his resignation letter addressed to President Rodrigo Duterte Tuesday, after NHCP chair Maria Serena Diokno announced her resignation. The letter, dated November 19, was submitted to the president a day after Marcos was buried at the heroes' cemetery. In his letter, Gealogo reaffirmed the Commission's opposition of the burial, adding that it was based on "solid historical research." "I believe that the Commission's stand opposing the burial of Ferdinand E. Marcos Sr. at the Libingan ng mga Bayani is based on solid historical research and is made as part of the mandate of the Commission to clarify issues pertinent to historical questions that confront our society," he wrote. "I stand by the historical truth of the fact that the martyrs and victims of martial law should be the ones that we ought to recognize as the true heroes of our nation, and not the dictator who caused untold miseries and suffering to our people," Gealogo added. Gealogo said he waited for Diokno to tender her resignation before making his own announcement. Aside from sitting as a member of the board of NHCP, Gealogo is also an associate professor of history at the Ateneo de Manila University. SHARED FROM