THE frothing-in-the
mouth outrage expressed by Yellow commentators and even academics such as
Ambeth Ocampo over a young actor's remark that history is like tsismis is
a classic case of that quip from Shakespeare: "The lady doth protest too
much."
The Yellows protest
too much: they have been transforming many deliberately concocted rumors into
their version of history, which they now claim cannot be "revised."
Here is one example:
(photo credit to Mie Alquinto) |
The chapter claimed that Mijares was tortured and killed in 1977 in a really brutal manner by Marcos' minions in revenge for his father Primitivo Mijares' defection as the strongman's covert PR operator in 1976. The elder Mijares had written a book that allegedly revealed the corruption of the Marcos couple, titled The Conjugal Dictatorship of Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos.
An uncritical reader
would certainly condemn Marcos to hell, and be a forever Marcos-basher for such
a dastardly crime inflicted on an innocent boy especially as he can easily
imagine unforgettable scenes of people being thrown off or threatened to be
thrown off helicopters, as in "The Gods Must be Crazy,"
"Narcos" and even "The Dark Knight Rises."
But those were movies,
and those blood-curling scenes I suspect gave the Yellow propagandists the
inspiration for their Mijares tale. Why would "Marcos minions" go
through all the trouble, expense and the risk of throwing a 15-year-old boy from
a helicopter? That kind of ruthless crime would have been talked about
immediately, leaked probably by the pilot and the ground crew, who are required
to sign off the flight manifest.
First rumor
In fact, the first
rumor of somebody being thrown off a helicopter involved Boyet's father himself
who disappeared in the US after giving a testimony in a congressional committee
urging the US government to condemn Marcos' marital law regime, and alleging
that the strongman attempted to bribe him for $100,000 not to testify.
Apparently that tsismis had too few tear-jerking elements that it didn't get
any traction. So another one, more shocking, was concocted.
Mijares' congressional
testimony and book was largely ignored. Marcos was at the height of his popularity
in the US, even portrayed as the Filipino equivalent of John and Jackie
Kennedy. The American mind was elsewhere in the aftermath of the Watergate
scandal and Nixon's resignation. More importantly, except for corruption
involving rice imports by Marcos' cronies and the revelation of his
extra-marital activities, the book was a dud.
Its credibility would
later be shot because of its two huge lies. First, Mijares claimed that Marcos
was responsible for the 1971 Plaza Miranda bombing. But it has been established
incontrovertibly that it was undertaken by the Communist Party as their leaders
put it, "to accelerate the revolutionary flow." Second, Mijares
claimed that the landing of over 2,000 rifles at Digoyo Point in Isabela in
1971 was a sham, that it was undertaken by Marcos' troops to exaggerate the
communist threat so he could declare martial law. Participants in the arms
landing, as well as those who planned it, have declared that the arms were
supplied by China, intended for the New People's Army.
Media operator
Why did Mijares —
Marcos' trusted media operator who had disguised himself as a columnist of the Daily
Express — turn his back on the strongman and vanished in the US?
The very religious
former senator Francisco Kit Tatad, who was Marcos spokesman and a
colleague of Mijares, has given us clues why, in his book published last year, All
is Grace: An Autobiography.
Tatad narrated that
while Mijares had worked at the Lopezes'
Tatad wrote: "The
real story behind his losing his job at the Chronicle is one
for the books. In the 1969 presidential elections when Fernando Lopez was
running as Marcos' vice president, Mijares was assigned to cover the
Marcos-Lopez campaign. But the Lopezes learned very much later that instead of
carrying out his assignment, Mijares went gambling in Las Vegas while a paid
back wrote for him his by-lined campaign stories. He also reportedly left a
trail of gambling debts, which embarrassed the Lopezes."
Gambling lords
Tatad's report
immediately raised in my mind the conjectures: Was Mijares killed by gambling
lords as he couldn't pay off his debts? Or did he change his identity to escape
his creditors and to vanish in the huge expanse that is the US?
This report that the
Lopezes were angry at Mijares would also solve what was a puzzle for me.
Mijares' wife, Priscilla, who served as regional trial judge during martial
law, had joined the civil action class suit filed in 1992 against Marcos in a
Hawaii court, claiming her son Boyet was killed by Marcos' minions. (Strangely
though, she didn't file one claiming her husband was also killed by Marcos
agents.)
The American court
upheld her claim, along with the first 2,000 others who submitted such claims,
and ordered that Boyet's mother be paid $140,000. Priscilla filed unsuccessful
suits first, at a Philippine trial court and then an appeals court for the
compensation ordered to be paid. The courts dismissed her pleas, declaring that
US courts' jurisdiction does not extend to the Philippines.
However when a law was
passed during Benigno Aquino 3rd's term ordering the payments to those that the
Hawaii judge declared as victims of Marcos human rights violations, Boyet was
not included.
Did the Yellows' wrath
against Boyet's father extend to his mother?
No evidence
There is no evidence
nor any testimony that Boyet was killed by Marcos minions, tortured and then
thrown off a helicopter. All we have are the Yellow writers' movie-like tale
and his mother's claim that she filed in order to collect compensation for a human
rights victim from a US court.
Ranged against these
is a Manila trial court's decision that Boyet was killed in a failed
kidnap-for-ransom attempt, in which the three of the perpetrators were
convicted to life imprisonment.
A professional
historian will also consider evidence stronger than the claims by people, and
will even quote a newspaper, the New York Times June 19 edition, that
reported:
"The Philippines
police said today that four men had been arrested for the murder of 15‐year‐old Luis
Manuel Mijares, son of one of President Ferdinand Marcos' severest
critics. The youth's beaten and stabbed body was identified on Friday after he
had been missing since May 30.
The boy's father,
Primitivo Mijares, has exiled himself in the United States, where he has
been making speeches critical of the martial law regime of President Marcos. He
was formerly the head of the government's Media Advisory Council."
Lacson
Who was the police
officer who investigated the case and filed the charges? Then Philippine
Constabulary 1st Lt. Panfilo Lacson, five years after graduating from the
Philippine Military Academy who was then with the Metrocom Intelligence and Security
Group.
The official website of
the two-term senator and presidential candidate posted this in September last
year:
"The Boyet
Mijares murder was a kidnap-for-ransom case. After close coordination with then
Judge Priscilla Mijares, Lacson and his team solved this case and filed
the appropriate case/s before the prosecutor's office. 'Official records will
bear me out,'" he tweeted.
There are several
other tsismis made into Yellow history I will write about them in succeeding
columns, a few, as in this Mijares tale, straight out of movie scenes.
Quoted
fully from Mr. Rigoberto Tiglao’s column
The
Manila Times
July
20, 2022
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Report from The Manila Times
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