Imee’s ‘20-20’

Congresswoman Imee Marcos of the second district of Ilocos Norte, has started a project to, among other things, provide a much kinder view on how Philippine history should treat her late father, former President Ferdinand Marcos during his 20-year rule of the country.

It is still at its "virtual" stage, but a good starting point for a Marcos Presidential Center is a website cum library for archives and research about the Marcos era.

Though Imee is named after her mother, former First Lady, Mrs. Imelda Marcos, the Ilocos Norte solon is regarded as much like her late father in her being a wily politician. She, in fact, is keeping alive her late father’s Kilusang Bagong Lipunan (KBL) party with brother, Ilocos Norte Gov. Bongbong Marcos. Marcos loyalist ally, Rep. Roquito Ablan of the first district of Ilocos Norte is the other KBL in their province.

Tapping what she learned from Princeton University where she took up religion and politics, Imee has asked and mobilized friends, allies, and even anti-Marcos personalities who are experts in history, academics, polemics, or even non-politicians to join this reconstruction of the country’s history during the Marcos era.

How is she doing this? Or rather, how would she undo the tag of "dictator" conferred upon her late father? The late President earned this notorious tag when he imposed martial law rule in the country by virtue of Proclamation 1081 on Sept. 21, 1972 until he was ousted from office at the end of the February 1986 EDSA People Power Revolution.

This certainly looks like a mission impossible for Congresswoman Marcos. But rewriting Philippine history is the least of her worries. What the Marcos daughter has been doing is to collect and gather materials to provide Filipino students of history about the less talked about virtues of her late father by comparing the achievements of his administration with his four successors in the past 20 years. Thus, she calls it "20-20" as the working title for this project about the Marcos regime "20 years before EDSA" and "20 years after EDSA."

Imee gave me a glimpse of this project for the former President during a post birthday dinner that she and her Singaporean husband unknowingly hosted for me last week. I was not in the mood to celebrate my birthday with all the coup jitters all over the place that I have to handle as a news editor. But it was a welcome respite to talk about this part of history when I was still a young student.

So far gathered from the presidential library of the late President Marcos are a collection of 2,093 Presidential Decrees (PDs); 1,105 Executive Orders (EOs); 2,542 Proclamations (Procs); 506 Administrative Orders (AOs); 155 Letters of Instructions (LOIs); and, 80 General Orders (GOs). During his 20 years in power, Marcos issued and promulgated a total of 7,883 statutes. To-date, however, there have been only 31 PDs, 19 EOs, 9 LOIs, 7 Procs, 1 AO and zero GO that have been either repealed, revoked, modified or amended. All these so-called "repressive decrees" issued by Marcos were repealed a few months after Filipinos ratified our country’s 1987 Constitution.

"(But) Many laws written by my father are still in force and in effect," she pointed out. So Imee has every reason to twit whoever drafted President Arroyo’s Proclamation 1017 which lifted word-for-word one of the provisions in Proclamation 1081 issued by ex-President Marcos. "You’re nothing but a second-rate, trying hard copycat!" This was Imee’s punch line, also not original but lifted from a famous dialog in the movie where actress Sharon Cuneta was being confronted in a scene by Cherry Gil in "Bituing Walang Ningning."

As a nation though, I agree with her that it’s very unhealthy and weird that we don’t preserve in our memories the good things we enjoyed during the Marcos era, or we have intentionally ignored them and prevented them from being included in our history books. Worse, if these were erased. Even if we all hated martial law, if we don’t study history, we will all be condemned and bound to repeat the same mistakes of the past, she warned.

Coming back to the Philippines after their family lived in exile abroad for several years, Imee and the rest of the Marcoses have no love lost with ex-President Corazon Aquino who had prevented their return to our homeland during her watch.

I ribbed the opposition lady solon if she would link arms with Mrs. Aquino if they find themselves together in a "people power" rally against their common foe, President Arroyo. Imee flippantly retorted "Yes, why not."

"Chicadera ako gaya ng Mommy ko!" Imee chortled in the sward speak that she has become popular with. Of course, the Congresswoman refers to the chummy relations that her mother has with President Arroyo. There have been so much talk about the alleged "secret" agreement between President Arroyo and Mrs. Marcos that would eventually lead to the burial of the remains of ex-President Marcos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani in Fort Bonifacio, Makati City. Until that time comes, the remains of the deposed President are being kept in a refrigerated crypt in his ancestral house in Batac.

Talking about Fort Bonifacio, the Congresswoman claims she was having her nails manicured early Sunday afternoon last Feb. 26 when she got several calls from frantic wives of retired Marine officers. Many of these Marines, she noted, are G.I.’s, as in Genuine Ilocanos, who have remained her loyal friends throughout these years and sought her out to help them get back to their homes inside the camp. This was after the Fort Bonifacio gates were closed to all civilians during the stand-off by the mutinous Marine officers led by Col. Ariel Querubin.

Imee’s husband who was in Shanghai that day, after seeing her on cable news television, immediately sent text messages to his wife to get out of there for fear of her safety. L.A. Times Manila correspondent Sol Vanzi, whom I bumped into earlier, told me Mrs. Marcos called her up that Sunday after apparently seeing them on TV together in the middle of the Fort Bonifacio stand-off. Imee refused though to talk with her mother who, for sure, she said would again plead for her to stay out of that anti-GMA protest action.

She gave in one time to her mother’s pleas during the impeachment proceedings against President Arroyo. Congresswoman Marcos made herself conveniently out of the country at that time while her colleagues in the opposition were being routed by the overwhelming majority at the House of Representatives who voted to kill the impeachment case against the President. While she may not admit it, the Ilocos Norte lady solon apparently has yet to recover from this stunt which she pulled and lost face with fellow oppositionists.

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