Notorious fake hero died 25 years ago
This September’s theme is Filipino heroism.
We cheered Gilas’ courageous performance at the FIBA World Cup and saluted the way outgunned, outnumbered Filipino soldiers bravely faced off with extremist rebels in the Middle East.
If only we didn’t have to deal with the embarrassing case of fake heroism that’s bound to be highlighted this month.
For while we’ve been celebrating Filipino heroes in sports and world affairs these past few weeks, September also marks the 25th anniversary of the death of the most notorious Filipino fake hero in history: Ferdinand Marcos.
The former dictator died in exile in Hawaii on September 28, 1989, three years after he was kicked out of the country in a popular uprising and after he was exposed as a bogus hero of World War II.
Marcos is best remembered as a tyrant and corrupt dictator. (He’s been ranked the second most corrupt ruler in the world after Indonesia’s Suharto.) This month marks the 42nd anniversary of the declaration of martial law, which gave rise to his dictatorship.
But Marcos is notorious for one other thing: fabricating outlandish tales to portray himself as a fearless war hero — and nearly getting away with it.
To be sure, Marcos used his power as dictator to protect his secret.
In the early ‘80s, WE Forum, the opposition paper published by the late Joe Burgos, dared to run stories questioning Marcos’ war record. The articles were based on the research of Bonifacio Gillego, a former Philippine military officer who became an outspoken critic of the regime.
Marcos reacted quickly and violently to the WE Forum expose. The regime shut down the paper and jailed Burgos and members of his staff.
But the story just wouldn’t die.
A few years later, in 1985, historian Alfred McCoy discovered previously classified military files at the National Archives in Washington, DC related to Marcos’ war claims.
What he found left him “stunned,” McCoy later told the New York Times, which broke the story of his discovery in 1986.
In the files, Marcos claimed to be the audacious leader of an impressive anti-Japanese guerrilla force called Maharlika.
He even asked the U.S. government to recognize his group, submitting a 29-page document that claimed his guerrilla unit was ”spawned from the dragging pain and ignominy” of the Bataan death march and that its members ”grew such a hatred of the enemy as could be quenched with his blood alone,” according to a January 1986 New York Times report.
The document drew a portrait of a guerrilla warrior straight out of a Hollywood movie. “’It seemed as if the Japanese were after him alone and not after anyone else,” the document said, according to the report.
It was all a lie.
The US Army branded Marcos’ claims “absurd,” according to the New York Times report. The US military denied his requests for recognition for his unit. One investigator concluded that Marcos made up the stories about his guerrilla group saying, “No such unit ever existed.”
That same officer also called Marcos’ claims ”fraudulent,” ”preposterous” and ”a malicious criminal act.”
And it gets worse.
In 1950, the US Veteran’s Administration discovered that some of the people Marcos claimed were members of his Maharlika group actually committed atrocities against Filipinos instead of fighting the Japanese forces. The agency said they were engaged in “nefarious activity,” such as selling contraband to the Japanese, the report said.
The New York Times even checked with a former US Army officer who was involved with Philippine guerrillas during the war.
Remember that this was during the heated presidential race between Marcos and Cory Aquino. The officer, former Capt. Ray Hunt, was even somewhat supportive of Marcos’ reelection bid calling him “the lesser of two evils.”
But when shown records of Marcos’ wartime claims, even the officer and would-be Marcos sympathizer was scandalized by the dictator’s lies.
”This is not true, no,” he was quoted as saying in the report. “Holy cow. All of this is a complete fabrication. It’s a cock-and-bull story.’”
Just weeks after the report exposing Marcos’ fake heroism came out, the dictator behind that cock-and-bull story was driven out of power by an angry nation.
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