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/

RECYCLABLOG #3: Marcos Sex Files: Matilda Waltzes with the Dictator

Does the name Evelin Hegyesi ring a bell? If it does, that means you probably have an archive of Playboy magazines dating back to the 70′s. Evelin Hegyesi is a former Sydney model who once graced the pages of Playboy and modeled mink bikinis. She also once stole the heart of Ferdinand Marcos (pre-Dovie Beams). The two are said to have met while she was working as a model in Paris in 1970. She was at a fashion show and was introduced to president Marcos and “struck an immediate rapport”. Hegyesi thereafter would frequent Manila, trysting with Apo Ferdie at a “safehouse” somewhere in Forbes. She then got pregnant and gave birth to a daughter on April 1971. 

A Marcos lovechild? Well, her daughter’s name is Analisa Josefa (pic on the right with partner Dean Fleming). Josefa is the name of Marcos’s mother. Curiously also, when Swiss authorities lifted their notorious bank secrecy laws, international investigators found an “Australian” link to one of Marcos’s secret accounts. Soon after Evelin Hegyesi gave birth in 1971, Marcos signed papers that made Ms Hegyesi’s company, Austraphil Pty Ltd, the “sole and only beneficiary” of one of his fronts, the Azio Foundation. Hegyesi set up Austraphil on October 14, 1970 when she was just 23 years old and three months pregnant. Money was regularly transferred from this Marcos account to the accounts of Evelin Hegyesi only terminating when Marcos died in 1989. 

In February 1993, Evelin took her daughter to Manila to meet the Marcos lawyers and tried to persuade them the pair were entitled to $20 million from the estate. They travelled with Joe Phillips, a financial consultant Evelin had hired to help claim the money from the Marcos estate. The Hegyesis and Mr Phillips met the Marcos family lawyer Manuel Lazaro early in February, 1993. Several of Marcos’s generals were at the meeting. Mr Lazaro told them he accepted Analisa was the daughter of Marcos, but there was no provision for them in Marcos’s will. The meeting was friendly and the three were invited to dinner at Mr Lazaro’s home. Though Evelin and Analisa returned home empty-handed, the two still lead a very posh life. Evelin is now a 57-year old real estate multi-millionaire (thanks to that seed money and sustento from d’ Apo) and Analisa is a socialite living with the son of a racing and fruits market family with an estimated worth of $270 million.

Source: http://indiosbravos.blog.com/2011/04/16/recyclablog-3-marcos-sex-files-matilda-waltzes-with-the-dictator/

RECYCLABLOG # 2:My Big Fat Greek Accomplice

On March 9, 1986, a Greek national boarding a plane for Hong Kong was stopped by customs officials when they found the man carrying a suspicious package of 8 large padded envelopes. The officials asked him to open the envelopes and they found pieces of expensive jewelry in each one of them. When questioned about the ownership of the precious stones, the Greek national admitted they belonged to Imelda Marcos and they were to be collected by a jeweler friend of Imelda’s in Hong Kong. The Greek passenger’s name: Demetrios Roumeliotes and the seized jewels were to be known as the famous Roumeliotes collection, the most valuable and magnificent of Imelda’s jewelry.

The seized items were boarded onto armoured cars and whisked off to the Central Bank. In August, the government invited world renowned art and jewelry dealer Christie’s to appraise the collection. The Christie’s team was headed by then head of jewelry sales, Rusell Fogarty and international director chairman Francois Curiel. Together with representatives of the PCGG   and customs officials, they carefully inspected the “loot” of 60 pieces of jewelry and some loose stones. According to a witness (the appraisal was not made known to the public at that time), there were audible gasps as each item was taken out of their packet. Among the items that bedazzled the appraisers were a Persian- style necklace with over 100 carats of yellow and pinkish diamonds of various sizes, shapes and cuts; a 93 carat diamond necklace by Italian jeweller Buccelati (the Buccelati name has been known to the jewelry and silver world since the mid 18^th century!); a bracelet with a solitary marquise diamond of 30.56 carats that still had the price tag from Bulgari attached to it: the price $1 M; a pair of combination diamond and emerald earrings of which the emeralds (3 carats each) from Van Cleef and Arpels were of such rare clarity, color and quality that the appraisers were dumfounded and could not put a price on them without further research. The diamond droplets were 3 carats each.

The rest of the stash sparkled with an array of brooches, necklaces and earrings made of diamonds, rubys and emeralds the size of coins, ranging from 3, 7, 15, 82 to a hundred carats each (just for perspective: ordinary blokes like us who get our wives jewelry will sweat it out for a .25 or 1 carat piece in a downtown mall—and we’re not talking of “pure” cuts). Christie’s never made public their appraisal of the jewelry but estimates from the PCGG range from 4.7 to 5 million dollars at the time. The Roumeliotes collection was only one of several seized from the Marcoses when they fled. Of course Imelda denied owning the Roumeliotes collection even claiming that they were not real but made of paste. More than a decade later, sometime during his presidential term, Joseph Estrada ordered two Customs officers to meet Imelda at her Makati condo. He gave them specific instructions to accommodate her because “she only wants a few pieces (of jewelry) back, those that have sentimental value for her.” Soon afterwards, one of the two officers was named deputy collector, with a promise of further promotion to Customs deputy commissioner had Estrada not been ousted. So if you happen to bump into Imelda at shop 168 in Divisoria and see her sporting a pair of emerald droplet earrings, tell her to swap them for those kitschy costume jewelry pieces from one of the stalls, anyway hers is just made of  “paste”.

Source: http://indiosbravos.blog.com/2011/04/13/recyclablog-2my-big-fat-greek-accomplice/

RECYLABLOG 1: ARCHIMEDES PRINCIPLE

(In response to Imee’s brush-off: “I see nothing to apologize for” or something to that effect) 
First posted: Jan ’08

It is the principle of buoyancy, but this Archimedes was found floating in a pool of his own blood. In August, 1977, two months before his 22nd birthday, Archimedes Trajano was beaten, tortured and killed for asking a question in a public forum of Imee Marcos. Imee was giving a talk on the Kabataan Baranggay at the Mapua Institute of Technology. There was an open forum and Archimedes Trajano stood up and asked a question which apparently irked Imee. Archimedes Trajano never got an answer and was forcibly taken out by the bodyguards of Imee. 

He was found days later on a Manila street, dead, his body and face badly bruised and swollen. His mother, Agapita was informed by the police that her son was killed in a dormitory fight but witnesses said that Archimedes Trajano never returned to his dorm after he was dragged out of the forum. Fearing for their safety, the Trajano family left the Philippines. 

After the People Power revolution, a class action suit was filed by human rights victims against the Marcos family. Seeking justice for her son, Agapita Trajano joined the litigants. Her case was taken by American human rights lawyer Sherry P. Broder. Broder was deeply moved by Trajano’s case and represented the family pro bono. In 1993, Hawaii court Judge Manuel Real found Imee Marcos liable for Trajano’s murder and ordered her to pay $ 4.4 million to Trajano’s heirs….Justice finally? A summons was served to Imee in 1993 by the Pasig Regional Court. At that time, Imee’s known address was at the Alexandra condominium in Pasig. A court sheriff served the summons but only a caretaker of the condominium had received the papers. To make a long story short and to cut through all the legal mumbo-jumbo, the summons was never “received properly” and the summons lapsed. All Imee had to do was to claim that she was not a resident of the Alexandra condominium where the summons was served…and that’s exactly what she did, filing a motion to dismiss before the Pasig court, showing her Philippine passport and a “disembarkation/embarkation” card issued by the Singapore Immigration Service to show she was a resident of Singapore at the time. Nice. 

In 2006, the Supreme Court voided the civil proceedings before the Pasig courts where the Trajano family was seeking the enforcement of the US court ruling ordering Imee to compensate them for the murder… All because the courts could not “effectively serve” the summons. Well geez, from the time Imee returned to the country, wasn’t she on the cover of every glossy magazine, interviewed by all the major networks, even having a short stint as a comedic actress opposite Rosanna Roces in a telenovela? How hard was it to track her down at her known address? I suppose Imee would just pop up for those photo shoots and interviews and then vanish into thin air huh? And we wonder why we pardon and free murderers, plunderers and rapists?

Source: http://indiosbravos.blog.com/2011/04/11/hello-world/