RECYCLABLOG 7: Sieg Heil! Mein Fuhrer!

Bagong Lipunan March

February 1986. It was reported that when rebel soldiers secured Malacañang palace and they entered the presidential bedroom they discovered a dialysis machine (presumably of Ferdinand Marcos), half-eaten dinners, betamax tapes and on the presidential bedside table, William Shirer’s book, “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich”, the 1,500+ page classic, chronicling the history of Nazi Germany. Definitely not bedtime reading for little Aimee. Political historians acknowledge the brilliance of Ferdinand Marcos as a lawyer, politician and leader. It was said that he obsessed with making his mark in Philippine history and it is not far fetched that he may have taken inspiration and lessons from Hitler and the Nazis. There are just too many parallels between the two that the book on his bedside, if you manage to plow through the thousand plus, fine-print pages seem to confirm. Hitler authored his “Mein Kampf”, Marcos his “Democracy: The New Revolution”, both written as an exposition of political ideologies. Hitler burned the Reichstag as a pretext to gain more “emergency powers” as new Chancellor of Germany, Marcos staged bombings and Enrile’s phony assassination attempt as pretext to declare martial law. Both raised the communist bogey. Hitler wanted to restore Aryan pride, dreamt of creating the super Aryan race, and used all these convoluted arguments of race as pretext to “re-take” territories that he said rightfully belonged to Germany. Marcos wanted to rename the Philippines “Maharlika” which according to him would rid us of our colonial shackles, symbolic though it may be. Hitler’s Aryans were to Marcos’ “Maharlikans” (incidentally “Maharlika’ was the name of his guerilla unit in WW2). He also planned the failed invasion of Sabah, under the pretext of a territorial dispute and to rally nationalist zeal against Malaysia so he could declare war and place the country under martial rule but failed when the muslim soldiers he had secretly trained staged a mutiny and were killed in the famous “Jabbidah Massacre”. 

The Nazi inspirations were more evident though once he consolidated power during martial law. Hitler was a master propagandist and Marcos took several cues from the pomp and pageantry of the Nazis. Under the “New Republic”, Marcos’ version of the Third Reich, he had national artists Lucio San Pedro and Felipe de Leon compose  the official anthem of the New Society “Bagong Pagsilang”. It was composed as a march and was grandiose in theme. Story goes that Marcos took inspiration in Hitler’s favorite martial tune “Badenweiler Marsch” or “Badenweiler March”. This famous Bavarian military march was played as an official theme song whenever Hitler entered the parade grounds. Something like Darth Vader’s Imperial March. Interestingly, the “Bagong Lipunan Hymn” was alternately known as the “Bagong Lipunan March” (hear for yourself in the attached music files). Children were made to memorize and sing this hymn every morning at school. Speaking of children, Hitler had his Hitler Youth and Marcos, his Kabataang Baranggay headed by daughter Imee Marcos. Hitler had his ruling party the Nationalsozialismus or Nazis while the New Society Movement or KBL (Kilusang Bagong Lipunan) was Marcos’ version of the “brown shirts”. FM’s third inauguration in 1981 was his version of Hitler’s Nuremberg rally, famously immortalized in Leni Reifenstahl’s “Triumph of the Will”.  Marcos pulled out all the stops and featured a cavalry during the military parade. Generals rode these fine white horses and as jets roared above, the military parade continued to pass in review, infront of herr Fuhrer Marcos, a 100-man chorale chanted, in cadence, and accompanied by the pounding of timpani drums: “Marcos, Marcos, Pangulong Marcos!” After his oath-taking, on cue, the chorale burst into Handel’s “Messiah”: “…And He shall reign forever and ever!” Sieg Heil! Hitler used the Jews as scapegoats for their country’s economic woes, confiscating their property and extracted them from German society. Marcos could not play the race card as he knew the Chinese were too entrenched in society and too important as allies so he focused on the families of his political opponents. Fewer in number, he branded them as the “oligarchs”, blamed them for all the inequities of the “old society”, jailed them, confiscated their businesses and successfully ostracized them from the New Republic. 

Hitler and Marcos were both superstitious men and believed in the occult. Though outwardly a Catholic, Marcos maintained strong relations with the Aglipayans, a cultist nationalist Filipino church. Marcos was obsessed with numerology; his presidential car plates were not No.1 but 777. He kept his right pinky fingernail long as a superstitious belief of retaining his longevity. Hitler obsessed too with signs and symbols. The parallels go on and on. And although there was no large scale Holocaust, many were killed, both true subversives and innocents, during his regime; according to son Ferdinand Jr., “collateral damage” in his father’s “struggle” to keep the Republic together. For me, Marcos’ greatest crime was that he rid us of the best and brightest statesmen, leaders and free thinkers thru co-option, incarceration or murder and now we are left scraping the bottom of the barrel with these second, third generation New Society discards screaming for a hero’s burial for their Fuhrer. Sieg Heil! Mein Fuhrer!

Source: http://indiosbravos.blog.com/2011/04/26/recyclablog-7-sieg-heil-mein-fuhrer/