A Genealogy of Marcos Children’s Sins (Part 1)
By Karl Patrick Wilfred M. Suyat
First of three parts
“Yes, truly, for look you, the sins of the father are to be laid upon the children. Therefore I promise ye I fear you. I was always plain with you, and so now I speak my agitation of the matter. Therefore be o’ good cheer, for truly I think you are damned.”
— William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice
From February 22 to 25, 1986, two forms of defenses had been woven in mutually exclusive standpoints. One was the almost bloodless defense that snaked around the fragile fortress of Camp Aguinaldo and Camp Crame — the centerstage for a melodramatic show of resistance. The other defense was that of a desperate dictatorship mustering what was left of his regime’s arsenal to cling on to Malacañang, the powerhouse of fascism and a grandiose symbol of a dictator’s decreed abuses.
In this quixotic battle of defenses that shifted the course of Philippine history, Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, Jr. found himself standing on the defense of a decrepit Palace. Haunted by the ghosts of the thousands whom his family’s dictatorship had exterminated, and hounded by the magnitude of excesses the conjugal dictators Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos, their clan, and their coterie of cronies had been able to perpetuate, he chose without hesitation to defend himself and his family.
In his version of history, the people’s uprising that would be renowned as People Power — the global archetype for uprooting tyrants in a “nonviolent” manner — was a mere “threat” from which he needed to defend their palace. There were no questions of right and wrong, “good or evil.” It was all about securing his family’s hold on power — against the collective might of a people so badly mangled to a point of return by the Marcos dictatorship that it decided to rise up and overthrow the lords of plunder.
But here’s the thing: in a rash of propaganda schemes — from well-oiled Pinoy Monkey Pride videos to that controversial interview with his wedding godchild Celestine “Toni” Gonzaga-Soriano — the late dictator’s son and namesake aims to peddle the lie that he is a reformed Marcos, that he had nothing to do with the blood in his parents’ hands. His sisters carry over the same line of deceit. But here’s what the Marcos children do not want you to know: they were active participants in and beneficiaries of their parents’ crimes against the Filipino nation.
The Marcos children were as complicit in the brutality and plunder of their dictatorship.
Trajano v Marcos
In a radio interview on October 16, Senator Maria Imelda “Imee” Marcos had this to say about one of the most contentious electoral issues that surfaces as the 2022 national elections near — his father’s dictatorship: “Siguro iyon ang dapat hingin natin sa mga kandidato, imbes na mga birada, patutsada, batikos, siguro hingin natin sino ba talaga ang program ng gobyerno.” In 1977, however, she had a different response to criticism.
Perhaps the closest link that any Marcos children would have with the crimes of martial law was the infamous murder case of 22-year-old Mapua Institute of Technology student Archimedes Trajano.
Trajano was a student activist long before August 31, 1977 — the fateful day of his meeting with Imee. The chairman of Kabataang Barangay at that time, which had also served as her informal political network and machinery, Marcos’ eldest daughter knew what came with the power that his father arrogated to himself and his family through Proclamation 1081: the kind of power where no one could question, let alone protest, the machinations of those who wielded that power.
Being a classic tibak, Trajano defied that truism. The price was steeply high.
An open forum had occurred in the Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila, the same university where the first Filipino martyr during martial law — Liliosa Hilao — hailed. Trajano threw the most frightening question that no one else dared to ask: “Must the President’s daughter head the Kabataang Barangay?” It was a valid and logical question: if Marcos’ own Presidential Decree 684 would be the basis, Imee’s appointment as the KB chair should be declared null and void. Did she even need to “amplify” her “aspirations?”
Without a grunt, Imee’s bodyguards whisked Trajano away from the forum. Imee was irritated with Trajano’s daring act. Blindfolded, he was led by Imee’s security force into a dungeon where he was beaten, tortured, and murdered. A few days later, his body surfaced in the outskirts of Manila. Agapita, his mother, mumbled: “My God, why him?”
Indeed, why him? Simple: he earned the presidential daughter’s ire, so much ire that he had to undergo what the Trajano v Marcos case itself had tried to explicate: “… [Trajano] was kidnapped, interrogated, and tortured to death by military intelligence personnel who were acting under Ver’s direction, pursuant to martial law declared by Marcos, and under the authority of [military intelligence chief Fabian] Ver, Marcos, and Marcos-Manotoc. He was tortured and murdered for his political beliefs and activities.”
Because 1977 was at the height of the Marcos dictatorship, it was impossible for the Trajano family to earn justice. His mother fled to Hawaii, until nine years after: the People Power uprising saw the Marcos family scurrying away into isolation in Hawaii. There, Agapita fought tooth and nail to obtain justice. She sued the Marcos family and Ver in a Hawaii federal court — for the “false imprisonment, kidnapping, wrongful death, and a deprivation of rights” of Archimedes — and won.
The Hawaii court’s decision was irrefutable: “… judgment was entered based on the court’s findings that Trajano was tortured and his death was caused by Marcos-Manotoc. The court concluded that this violation of fundamental human rights constitutes a tort in violation of the law of nations under 28 U.S.C. § 1350, and awarded damages of $4.16 million and attorneys’ fees pursuant to Philippine law.”
Here’s the worst part in the Trajano case: Imee Marcos admitted that she knew about Trajano’s torture and death. She used this as an argument to assert, in a devious way, that the Hawaii court to whom Agapita Trajano ran for legal relief had no jurisdiction over the case. The Hawaii court’s decision refuted Imee’s trajectory and convicted her for Archimedes Trajano’s torture and “wrongful death.”
But she has yet to acknowledge her role in Trajano’s murder. Neither has she paid the Trajano family $4.16 million as the court ordered.
Not only was Imee lying in saying that she “knew nothing” about martial law’s atrocities, she is actively obscuring the fact that she has Archimedes Trajano’s blood in her hands — her fair share in her family’s atrocities during their brutal regime — while holding a government position that she was only able to usurp through her dictator-dad.
To be continued.
