Throughline - Mythos and Melodrama in the Philippines

Episode Date: May 11, 2023

Corruption. Wealth. Authoritarianism. Torture. These are the words many people associate with Ferdinand Marcos, the former dictator of the Philippines, and his wife, Imelda. But in 1965, on the day of his presidential inauguration, clad in bright white traditional Filipino clothing, Ferdinand and Imelda were the picture of hope and progress: the Camelot of the Philippines. They styled themselves as mythical figures with a divine right to rule, even as their democratic ascent reached a dictatorial peak.Ferdinand Marcos ruled for two decades. And then, in 2022, more than thirty years after his death, the Philippines elected a new president: Ferdinand's son, Bongbong. Both in his campaign and since taking office, Bongbong has evoked the Marcos era as a golden age — effectively, rewriting history.Welcome to the "Epic of Marcos." In this tale of a family that's larger than life, Ferdinand Marcos is at the center. But the figures that surround him are just as important: Imelda, his muse; Bongbong, his heir; and the United States, his faithful sidekick. The story of the Marcos family is a blueprint for authoritarianism, laying out clearly how melodrama, paranoia, love, betrayal and a hunger for power collide to create a myth capable of propelling a nation. Today on the show, the rise, fall, and resurrection of a dynasty — and what that means for democracy worldwide.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Support for this podcast and the following message come from Autograph Collection Hotels, with over 300 independent hotels around the world, each exactly like nothing else. Autograph Collection is part of the Marriott Bonvoy portfolio of hotel brands. Find the unforgettable at AutographCollection.com. In the very beginning, the start of time, there were only three things. The ocean, the sky, and a single bird in constant flight. One day, the bird grew tired. It swooped down, flying over the sea, looking for a place to land.

Its wings stirred up the sea so much that the waves rose and crashed against the sky. Desperate to calm the sea, the sky rained down boulders. These boulders became the islands of the Philippines. The sky told the tired bird to build its nest on one of these islands. Once on land, the bird was struck by a bamboo stalk that was blowing in the breeze. Annoyed, it pecked at the bamboo. And then the bamboo split. The first Filipinos emerged from these bamboo stalks.

The first man, Malakas. Which means strength. And the first woman. Maganda, who was beautiful. And that's how the world began, with Mal first woman. Maganda, who was beautiful. And that's how the world began, with Malakas and Maganda, the first man and woman,

according to Filipino legend. The legend was passed down for generations, from person to person, ear to ear. But in the 20th century, Malakas and Maganda would come alive again, resurrected by two people. You know, Ms. Romaldes, if you will allow me, I'll marry you right now. Ferdinand Marcos and Imelda Romaldes. Marcos was very fond of sort of projecting the two of them in the role of the first man and woman of the Philippines emerging from these mythical bamboo stalks at the beginning

of time. So he was the strong man and she was the beautiful one. And that's really how they saw themselves. Ferdinand Marcos ruled the Philippines for 21 years, first as a democratically elected president and later as a brutal and oppressive dictator, all the while with Imelda at his side. And they leaned hard into this legend.

They even commissioned portraits of themselves emerging from the broken bamboo stalks of legend. Marcos, bare-chested, looking chiseled with a knife in hand. Imelda, swathed in white gauze, her black hair windswept, her gaze almost ethereal. This was part of their image-making of the new society they were going to build. A mythical notion of power. They stood at the very origin of the nation, and therefore they were entitled to rule it, you know, that they had a special calling to rule the nation.

At this point, you might be wondering, why are we talkingaldes Marcos Jr. Ferdinand Bongbong Marcos Jr. Ferdinand Romaldes Marcos Jr. Or as he's more commonly known, Bongbong Marcos. The sole son of dictator Ferdinand Marcos was elected president of the Philippines in 2022. And he's bringing his legend back to life. Now, the younger Marcos Jr. is promising a return to the golden age of his father's rule. The Philippines shall continue to be a friend to all, an enemy to none. The United States has signed a deal allowing large numbers of its troops

to return to the Philippines for the first time in three decades. U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin met Marcos in Manila on Thursday. Our alliance makes both of our democracies more secure and helps uphold a free Indo-Pacific. Bongbong Marcos pulled off a landslide victory, winning more than double the votes of his closest opponent. When he was sworn in as president, it was almost as if history was repeating itself. A Marcos would once again rule the Philippines. Welcome to the epic of Marcos. In this tale of a family that's larger than life, one man lies at the center. Ferdinand

Marcos, Sr. But the figures that surround him are just as important. Imelda, his muse. Bongbong, his heir. And the United States, his faithful sidekick. By following the story of the Marcos family, we can see the blueprint for authoritarianism clearly. How melodrama, paranoia, love, betrayal, and a hunger for power collide to create a dynasty. I'm Rondan Del Fattah. And I'm Ramtin Arablui. On this episode of ThruLine from NPR, producer Christina Kim chronicles how Ferdinand Marcos orchestrated his rise and lamented his fall, and how the Marcoses that remain are engineering the family's resurrection. Hi, this is Loren Scully from Chicago, Illinois.

You are listening to ThruLife. with no hidden fees. Download the WISE app today or visit WISE.com. T's and C's apply. Part 1. This nation can be great again. This is a story that starts with a murder. It's a dark and rainy night. Newly elected Filipino Congressman Julio Nalundasen, content and full after a dinner with friends,

steps out to the wash basin on his porch to brush his teeth. When from the shadows, a single shot explodes. His body falls limp to the ground. The Lundasan was murdered. The prime suspect was a young man named Ferdinand Marcos. It was 1935 in Ilocos Norte, a northern Philippines province. Ferdinand Marcos was then an 18-year-old student

at the University of the Philippines. He was home for the elections. Elections that Ferdinand's father, Mariano, had just lost to none other than... Julio Nalundasan, a politician who was the rival of Mariano Marcos. That's Sheila Coronel, a professor and director of the Tony Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism at Columbia University. Nalundasan and his followers were seen parading around the town and in front of Marcos' house with a coffin that said, Marcos is dead.

And that really riled up the Marcoses, sort of pouring salt into a wound that was still fresh. When Nelodecens' body lying in cold blood, all eyes turned to Fernan Marcos. He was a champion marksman at the university rifle and pistol team. He was seen to be the most plausible suspect. A smoking gun loomed, with the young Ferdinand at the center of it all. But he didn't balk. Instead, as his case was appealed and sent up to the Supreme Court,

his name became known across all the Philippine islands. The myth, the legend of the Marcos name, was in the making. He famously defended himself. He acted as his own lawyer in an all-white suit. It was a well-covered trial because he was this young man who was studying to be a lawyer, was about to take the bar. He was at the top of his class. And the justices acquitted him of the murder. The main reason the justices acquitted him was that they said it would be a pity to have someone with such promise go to jail.

I think the myth there was he was a brilliant man who defended his family's honor and acquitted himself. So Marcos, instead of denying the murder, has made it, flipped it around, and made it a myth about his brilliance and part of his inevitability. That this man was saved for greater things, and the justices saw that. That this was part of his destiny. So that started the Marcos legend, propagating myths about himself and his family almost from the time that he came out in public life. Ferdinand Marcos never quite fit in.

He was not modern or cosmopolitan. He was looked down upon by his classmates. But suddenly, with this trial, his name was known throughout the country. A gunshot had split the bamboo and begun to unlock his future. He believed that he was destined to unlock his future. He believed that he was destined to rule the country. A destiny that seemed far off so long as the Philippines remained a colony, first of Spain and then the U.S. The United States has always been a looming presence in Philippine life.

In 1898, under the command of Admiral Dewey, the American fleet defeated the Spaniards and the United States occupied the Philippines. We were, Philippines were a U.S. colony for years. Our little brown brothers would need 50 or 100 years of close supervision to develop anything resembling Anglo-Saxon political principles and skills.

William Taft, U.S. Governor of the Philippines. Colonial rule brought American education, American military, American democracy, influences that were forced upon the Filipino people after losing a bloody conflict with the U.S. The Philippines was America's first democracy-building project way before Iraq or Afghanistan because it was democracy introduced by empire. From the U.S. perspective,

colonization was not oppression. Colonization was a gift. This is Vicente Rafael, a professor of history in Southeast Asian Studies at the University of Washington in Seattle. It was a gift that they were giving these benighted people currently experiencing disorder and so forth and so on.

For all Filipinos, there is a single political goal, independence. Yet before the dream of independence could be realized came World War II and the bombing of the open city of Manila on 26 December 1941. When the Japanese invaded the Philippines, 200,000 plus Filipinos fought for the U.S. Fernan Marcos was one of them. In the fierce and hopeless battles that followed, there were four Philippine soldiers for every American soldier. The war was brutal, with estimates of civilian and military deaths ranging from half a million to a million. But not long after World War II ended, on July 4th, 1946, the Philippines was finally granted that elusive thing they'd long hoped for.

Independence. America keeps her pledge to free the Philippines. And the Philippine flag is hoisted as a new nation is born. The destiny Ferdinand Marcos had dreamed up for himself was now within striking distance. And he wasn't about to let the opportunity slip through his fingers. So just like with the murder trial, he dialed up the drama. He claimed to have won so many medals during the war that he

has more medals, 32 medals, more than Audie Murphy, who is the American World War II hero. Some of those medals are now suspected to be false, and his war record is disputed. He was not that heroic, larger-than-life hero of the Second World War that he said he was, that was the basis of his election campaign when he ran for senator. But it didn't matter. Amid the sea of blood World War II had wrought, Marcos managed to emerge from the bamboo stocks as Malakas, the mythical strongman, the original man. His transformation was nearly complete. The only thing he was missing was his maganda. He found her in a young woman Marcos would later call his secret weapon, Imelda.

It is not expensive to be beautiful. It takes only a little effort to be presentable and beautiful. Beauty is a discipline. She was like a movie star. You know, she was like a celebrity.able and beautiful. Beauty is a discipline. She was like a movie star. You know, she was like a celebrity. She was beautiful. She had just incredible long hair. She was mestiza, mixed race, light skin.

Very imposing figure, right? Despite being born into a political dynasty, Imelda grew up in poverty after her father squandered the family's fortunes. And so she had to go to work because she didn't have inheritance money. Imelda's big break came when she entered a beauty contest in Manila. She didn't win, but her presence made a splash, garnering the attention of many men, including Fernand and Marcos.

This guy is a future president. Guy is brilliant. This guy is everything. He is single and he is a future president. Guy is brilliant. This guy is everything. He is single and he is a real bachelor. He's brilliant. He's got all the potential. He's legendary. Whoever will not marry this guy is stupid. He immediately fell in love with her. And part of the Mar Marco Smith is that they engaged in what he called an 11-day coup courtship.

11 days. And with that, the 20th century Malakas and Magandha set out to build the Marco Smith together. He and Imelda

were quite a glamorous couple. They were likened to John and Jackie Kennedy. You know, they were like, they liked to promote themselves as the Philippine Camelot. Camelot, a fictional castle that King Arthur was said to have ruled with wisdom and benevolence. It was the word that captured the enduring mystique around JFK and Jackie Kennedy, a word that encapsulated their youth, their vitality, and their charm, a model for Fernand and Imelda.

JFK and Jackie knew that if you look wealthy and healthy, then people believe that you are, and believability is a politician's greatest asset. Marcos was around in his mid-40s Imelda was 36 in 1965 And they were a good-looking couple And they sort of represented the new Philippines He's the warrior, orator, you know, the hero

Who reversed the Supreme Court conviction And said he had lots of war medals This is Talitha Spiritu She's an associate professor at Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts, and author of Passionate Revolutions, The Media and the Rise and Fall of the Marcos Regime. People saw her as something like a star. She appealed to the most marginalized Filipinos.

And like every star, Imelda needed a signature look. And Talitha's dad, who was actually Imelda's personal dressmaker, helped her create a sartorial persona that was both modern and traditional. He designed this silhouette that became her signature, which is the tall terno, long gown, full length, like empire waist, and butterfly sleeves. These tall, poofy sleeves that went from shoulder to the bicep became the new symbol of modernity, of a new age coming to the Philippines. It looked like a Filipinized or an indigenized version of Jacqueline Onassis Kennedy.

Ferdinand and Imelda were seen as a breath of fresh air after a devastating war and after so many years of being colonized. The strongman and the beauty, capable and charming, stern but loving. If you look, especially at the foreign coverage at that time, they were seen as like these new leaders who were coming forward to lead this country and bring about, you know, the promise of Philippine progress and democracy. The stage was set for Fernan Marcos to run in the 1965 presidential election. Fernan and Imelda campaigned with pizzazz. Fernand gave rousing speeches.

Imelda serenaded crowds with love songs. And they even had a motion picture made. Drawn by Destiny is the English translation. Drawn by Destiny was a movie all about Ferdinand Marcos' life that was, of course, heavily dramatized. And like most melodramas, it had a tantalizing love story. It really enhanced this idea of, if I vote for Ferdinand, I'm voting for this romance. At the end of the movie, which came out a few months before the actual election, Ferdinand is depicted as destined to become president.

The eyes of all Asia and the entire world are upon Ferdinand E. Marcos, man of destiny. It's a very early, you know, version of like, you know, the kind of blurring of the lines between politics and entertainment, a pseudo-media event. And they were doing this in 1965. And it worked. I solemnly swear that I will faithfully and conscientiously fulfill the duties of President of the Philippines. When he was inaugurated president in 1965, Marcos said, this nation can be great again. They came at a time when people wanted to believe

that the Philippines was a rising star, the Asian region, and that it had a bright future ahead of it, and that the Marcos' were going to lead them to that future. President Fernan Marcos strengthened the relationship with the U.S., which was caught up in the Vietnam War and needed the Philippines' nearby bases. That is why I compliment the leaders of the Philippines in playing a role in Asian cooperation, economically, politically, and otherwise,

to bring about the peace that we all seek. And with the money from the U.S., he invested in the Philippines. He built more roads and schools and helped the country produce enough rice to feed itself. Everything was clicking. The Philippines seemed to be entering a new era. But everything wasn't what it seemed. Coming up, the Marcos myth is tested. Hi, this is Delphine Salom from Rancho Cocamonga, California, and you are listening to ThruLine from NPR.

Support for this podcast and the following message come from the NPR Wine Club, which has generated over $1.75 million to support NPR programming. Whether buying a few bottles or joining the club, you can learn more at nprwineclub.org slash podcast. Must be 21 or older to purchase. Hey, we wanted to tell you about something new happening here at the show. Starting next Monday, May 15th, our ThruLine Plus subscribers will now get special bonus episodes from us every month, where we'll take you behind the scenes, introduce you to our awesome production team, and tell you about how we make the show. Nothing is changing about our regular weekly show, but we wanted to give our amazing Plus subscribers a little something extra for their support. To become a Plus subscriber yourself,

go to plus.npr.org. And thanks to everyone who's already signed up. We hope you enjoy this new benefit. Now, back to the show. Part two. For national development, what we need is discipline. I often wonder what I will be remembered in history for. Scholar, military hero, the new constitution, strong rallying point, or weak tyrant. In the late 1960s, I was still in grade school when there were student demonstrations. I was completely oblivious to what was going on, but I do remember being picked up from school. And there were, the right police were battling with protesters. And I remember having to duck under the car because there was so much chaos all around.

Things started stirring up in Marcos' second term. After his re-election in 1969, Marcos' Camelot quickly devolved into chaos. There were protests for land reform. The country was swimming in debt. There were protests for workers' rights. Oil prices were up. There were protests for student rights. And a growing communist movement promised to shake up the elite rule that had never gone away. Suddenly the tectonic plates were shifting because all the things that had been building up underneath

were coming out to the surface and the ground was moving and there was a political system that was unable to contain all of these moving tectonic plates in society. People were beginning to question Marcos' rule and the man behind the myth. Because for the average Filipino, life was not getting any better.

Despite the changes being made, the money wasn't trickling down. Watching all this, Marcos decided he needed to double down on the idea that he was the Philippines' destiny. In his diary, he wrote, This is your principal mission in life. Save the country again from the Maoists, the anarchists, and the radicals. This is the message that I deduce. I have that feeling of certainty that I will end up with dictatorial powers if the situation continues.

And the situation will continue. And in 1972, after months of protest and unrest in the Philippines, President Ferdinand Marcos finally made his move. My continent, as of the 21st of this month, I signed Proclamation No. 1081, placing the entire Philippines under martial law. Marcus' goal was to stay in power. The only way he could stay in power was to declare martial law and make himself dictator, which is what he did in 1972. Overnight, streets that had been filled with the sounds of protest turned silent.

It was quiet. There were armed guards manning the barricades. The entry to the presidential palace was very restricted. And it was a very, very big difference from the kind of thriving, bustling place it used to be. I am confident that with God's help, we will attain our dream of a reformed society, a new and brighter world. A new sound filled the air. There were songs associated with the martial law regime that we were all supposed to know by heart. Bagong Paksilang, also known as the March of the New Society,

heard here, is a song Talitha remembers singing as a child. In it, a new society, the one Marcos promised to bring, is heralded as a new birth, with the Marcoses as the country's all-powerful saviors. A lot of the myth-making really happened when they had absolute power already. I remember as a child, like my mother telling us, like, you know, if you did something wrong, she would actually say,

don't do that, the president would get angry with you. There was nothing else on television. There was nothing else on the radio. Everywhere you looked was Ferdinand Imelda's. I've always claimed to be some kind of a soldier for beauty and a soldier for love. Marcos literally had a bust of himself carved on a mountainside. The Marcoses controlled everything people saw. Anything that showed Marcos weak or sick was censored.

Anything about the family wealth was censored. Any critical news was censored. Anything that showed Imelda's double chin, for example, even photographs, were censored. Political opponents were jailed and silenced. The message was clear. Sa ikaw ulan ng bayan, disiplina ang kailangan. When I was growing up, that was over and over on the radio and TV.

What it meant was that for the country to progress, we need discipline. And that discipline meant, you know, they had to obey the ruler, the rulers who are benevolent and benign, and that would lead them to greatness. Now everybody seems to be involved in the destiny, not only of himself, but of the entire country and of the entire nation. And this is what we have been hoping and praying for. He saw himself as the culmination of the long struggle to build an independent and proud country. And so he commissioned historians to write history books that said his new society was the inevitable end of this striving for national greatness. Fernand and Imelda made themselves seem like the past, the present, and the future of the Philippines. I grew up blinded by this monumentality, by this pageantry. All that I do and we in government must do.

It's for the republic and for you. But what was actually happening was that he was replacing the old elite, right? Like the old elite families, he was replacing it with his own network of crony families. But at the time, no one knew the extent of the corruption. And so while some Filipinos opposed Marcos' declaration of martial law, others believed it was a necessary step to rein in the instability that had seized the country. For the most part, it was tolerated, including by the United States. If the United States now were to throw in the towel and come home, and the communists took over South Vietnam, then all over Southeast Asia, all over the Pacific, in the Mideast, in Europe, in the world,

the United States would suffer a blow. Remember, this was the time that the U.S. was fighting wars in Vietnam. This was the time of the domino theory, when Americans didn't want any of the dominoes to fall. Marcos knew this, so he played up the communist threat in the Philippines. Marcos could not have survived without active U.S. support. And just like he promised the Filipino people stability at home, he promised it on the global stage as well. He was creating a narrative. So he's saying that there's this threat and I'm in power and while I'm in power, I'm not going to let this overcome us.

I'm going to be the strong man, jump on my horse and save the day. He got American support also because the Americans needed their bases in the Philippines. And Marcos would guarantee that access to military bases in the Philippines. It was an offer the U.S. couldn't refuse. And president after president recognized Marcos' role. Mr. President and Mrs. Marcos, the United States deeply values its close friendship and alliance with the Philippines.

But Fernan and Imelda weren't just interested in winning over the Filipino people or the U.S. They had their eyes on the whole world. They understood that the most important ingredient in their recipe for power, beyond rewriting history books, building monuments, or having friends in high places, was to put on a good show.

And that's exactly what they did. In 1974, they hosted the Miss Universe pageant. And the famous Thrilla in Manila fight between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier. It was like they put a spell on the world, especially Imelda. She was everywhere as the de facto global diplomat of the Philippines, visiting with heads of state in China. I am happy to report that we return from this, my third visit to the People's Republic of China, with another mission accomplished.

Addressing the United Nations. For too long have we been divided by selfish, materialist drives. All while still looking the part. First lady, I have to flaunt, practically flaunt, love and beauty so that the 50 million Filipinos will see what is to love and what is to positively feel and what is perfection. Imelda Marcos may have used millions of dollars of taxpayers' money to purchase what she thought were Italian masterpiece paintings. Imelda reportedly spent $3 million in a single shopping trip in New York City, as many in the Philippines faced poverty. Using the Philippine intelligence budget

as the equivalent of an American Express gold card, Imelda Marcos traveled to such places as Kenya, Iraq, and New York City. The total cost of the trips listed in these documents exceeds $1.5 million. What the world was seeing was a shiny veneer that the Marcos' had constructed to conceal the underbelly of the regime. It was common for the military to come in barn villages. There was one instance where they inserted wires in my genitals.

Gather the women and the children and put them in naval ships where the women were routinely raped. I know personally so many people who had been tortured. I know people who had disappeared. I know people who had been killed. Throughout the 1970s and early 80s, the two faces of the Marcos regime, the spectacle of opulence and the violent suppression, were in a constant, delicate dance. But the growing communist insurgency, which actually grew strength under Marcos, and the growing middle-class discontent, were once again turning the Philippines into a powder keg. All it needed was a spark.

The turning point came in 1983 when Ninoy Aquino, a former senator, was killed. Benigno Ninoy Aquino was one of Marcos' loudest critics and political opponents. After spending eight years in prison, he and his wife Corazon, Cori Aquino, were exiled to the U.S. to receive medical treatment. Aquino returned to the Philippines with the hopes of restoring democracy. He was shot right on the tarmac of Manila airport. And many people believed it was Marcos or his wife

or one of somebody in the Marcos camp who was responsible for his killing. An independent investigation of the murder would later find that it was Filipino military personnel who planned and carried out the assassination plot. But for the Filipino people, it didn't matter who pulled the trigger. Aquino's death became a clarion call for change. It really showed the brazenness of the Marcos regime and the impunity with which they ruled. That really dramatized, especially for the middle class, that, you know, this regime was no longer tolerable. Beginning in 1983, political opposition to Marcos became more and more open. Buckling under pressure, including from the U.S., Marcos promised to hold elections. Ninoy Aquino's widow, Cori, ran against Marcos.

She billed herself as a or assassinating political opponents. It resonated. Filipinos can see that I can really identify with that housewife because she suffered. Marcos won in what many knew was a stolen election. But even if he was able to strong-arm the polls, he lost the narrative battle. The Marcoses had lost control of the story that they had been telling for more than a decade. The terms of melodrama kind of like shifts on them, right? They can't control the melodrama anymore. Marcos was no longer the legendary Malakas.

Imelda, no longer Maganda. She's become sort of like the opposite of that. She is like a monstrous figure. It's difficult to identify with. After the sham elections, the opposition to Marcos was at a fever pitch. By late February, marches were being held every day on Epifanio de los Santos Avenue, or EDSA, escalating to what is now called the People Power Revolution.

One morning, my father just woke everyone up and said, we're going. Talitha's father, Imelda's famous dressmaker, had already severed ties with the Marcoses. And after years of cultivating Imelda's image, he was ready for a change. My father, like, dragging us out of bed, packing us into the family car. My mom handing out, like, washcloths in case there was tear gas. You know, and then just, you know, going.

I'm getting emotional because it was like it was like i you know imagine i'm i'm 15 at this point so i remember like being home and like trying just trying to keep up with homework not knowing if we were going back to school if not knowing what was going to happen and then and then and the amazing thing is like we didn't know what to expect but once we got to edsa which is this main thoroughfare right like we saw all the cars. I ask you now to become and to be prepared to express again your power as a people. It was a peaceful protest it was just everyone was there there's like you know like there was a lot of prayer going on and when I prayer, I mean praying the rosary.

Like so, so, you know, like nuns with megaphones leading the rosary. Sheila Coronel was also there. By this time, she was a journalist working for the Manila Times, a newspaper that had just reopened after being shut down during martial law. On that fourth night, I was at the gates of the presidential palace and there was already an angry, a big angry crowd gathered there. And I remember, I don't know if I'm imagining it, but I remember hearing the whir of helicopters.

Those were the helicopters that were taking the Marcos family out of the presidential palace. The Marcoses were airlifted by U.S. security forces to Hawaii. And when the Marcoses left, nobody manned the barricades anymore or the palace gates. So the crowd just surged in, and I was part of that crowd. It was like a giant wave that crashed through the gates of the palace. We walked into the dining room, the bedroom, the closet with Imelda's thousand-plus pairs of shoes. It was unbelievable. It felt really unreal to me that this could happen.

Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos' 21-year reign as the leaders of the Philippines had come to an end. Marcos' legacy as a dictator was set in stone. Or so it seemed. Coming up, the return of the Marcos family.

Hi, my name is Kevin Dillon from Cicero, Indiana, and you're listening to ThruLine via NPR. Part 3 Sama we shall rise again. I have the responsibility of upholding integrity, of holding our dead sacred by burying the late President Marcos in the Philippians, his motherland. It was my father's fervent wish that when he came to the end of his days, that he be buried in a simple soldier's ceremony. It was quiet. The family was there, all dressed up. Imelda was clad in all black. Bangbang Marcos,

Ferdinand's only son and namesake, wore a crisp white barang tagalog, the national Filipino shirt his father always wore. It was a burl with a 21-gun salute, with all the ceremony. And it was filmed in a very theatrical fashion. It was kind of epic propaganda that was prevalent during the Marcos era. Ferdinand Marcos had died in exile in Hawaii in 1989, nearly three decades before this moment when he was finally buried in Manila. Yes, you heard that right. For almost 30 years, Marcos' body was preserved above ground, unburied. And this moment in 2016, when he was finally laid to rest, was no ordinary funeral. For Imelda and for the family, I mean, clearly just vindication. Ever since returning from exile in the early 90s, Imelda had made it her rallying cry to

bring Fernand Marcos's body back to the Philippines. She used that corpse precisely to forge, to continue this melodrama, a story about deprivation, a story about loss, a story about disrespect. By casting herself as a grieving widow, Imelda could distract attention from the countless charges of corruption she and her family faced, and continue to face by the way, for reportedly embezzling billions of dollars from state coffers. So she pumped up the drama and the spectacle. She refused to bury Marcos and instead kept his body on display, albeit with a wig and wax face, according to the mortician. They built this huge mausoleum in Ilocos around it, and if you go there, you sort of enter,

it's very somber, there's classical music and so forth. And it was right beside this building called Malacanang of the North, Malacanang being the name of the presidential palace, right? So they built a kind of replica. Like a venerated saint or holy man,

Marcos' corpse waited. After previous presidents had refused Marcos a burial in the National Heroes Cemetery, Duterte allowed it. President Rodrigo Duterte, the strongman populace known for silencing journalists and extrajudicial killings. We thank President Rodrigo Duterte for his recognition of my father's service to the nation. The burial wasn't just a symbolic act. It was a rewriting of history. Officially, Marcos is now a hero. And so that reversed what we thought was

already the judgment of history, that Marcos was not a hero, that Marcos was a dictator who plundered the country. Let us be the heroes that my father asked us all to be and finally bring the Filipino nation together and finally bring the Filipino nation together and finally bring the Filipinos to greatness. The same year Ferdinand Marcos was buried, his son Bongbong ran for vice president. The Marcos family was back and ready to play a big role in the Philippines again. This is a historic moment for us all.

I feel it deep within me. You, the people, have spoken. And it is resounding. In 2022, Ferdinand Bongbong Marcos became the president of the Philippines. Years of drumming up nostalgia paid off. You could say that the current presidency of Bongbong Marcos is the culmination of this melodrama. Our vlog is a little different this week because it is my father's birthday. So we are celebrating also Marcos' day. The Marcos family knows the power of history.

And while Bongbong hasn't employed historians to rewrite history books, he's using the tools of the 21st century to recast his father's regime as a golden age. He's on YouTube and TikTok. My father had a vision, a dream for our country. And he wanted to reach that dream by building this nation up. Let us return. There's even a full-length feature movie called Made in Malacanang about the Marcos' last days in the Philippines before they were exiled.

Get them out of the Philippines. Executive produced by Senator Aimee Marcos, Bongbong's sister. The content is over the top, emotive, and like any good story, easy to get wrapped up in. But in this version of events, there's no mention of the billions of dollars the family is accused of stealing, the thousands tortured, or the more than 2,000 people killed during the regime. What you're getting now is this struggle, this real struggle between historians who, you know, are concerned about the historical record versus, you know, propag between historians who are concerned about the historical record versus propagandists who are more intent in creating this image of Marcos, this myth of Marcos.

It's all part of the reason why the hero's burial was so important to the family. It tied a bow on the story they've been selling. You know, people just have fuzzy memories of the Marcos's. The relationship between the United States and the Philippines, state the obvious, has very deep roots. I mean, the Americans have conveniently forgotten that they supported Marcos. They supported torture and human rights violations. After meeting with President Bongbong Marcos in 2022, President Biden tweeted, quote, our nation's relationship is rooted in democracy, common history, and people-to-people

ties. But missing from the tweet, the importance of Filipino military bases right now, as U.S. tensions with China continue to rise. And even within the Philippines, the historical record has never been fully sealed. The Philippines didn't do a good job of revising textbooks to show the next generation what really happened during the Marcos era. The majority of the Filipino electorate doesn't have any personal memories of martial law.

Instead, they've only witnessed the instability of the government to combat poverty, tackle corruption, or build more infrastructure. Which is why, according to Sheila Coronel, for many Filipinos, the nostalgic idea that the Philippines was once great and could be again with the Marcos family at the helm, is so appealing. The new generation of Filipinos have profound alienation from democratic politics. Unlike my generation that lives with dictatorship and had seeded and believed in the transformative power of democracy, this generation is disillusioned with democracy. They're connected with incompetence, gridlock, ineptness, with an inability to do anything about the problems of society.

So Filipinos have fresh memories of the disappointments of democracy. And so maybe they're much more open to other fantasies. So the Marcos' have capitalized on that. And they're saying, look, we are not elites. They're still saying that. These liberal elites have fooled you, have deceived you. They have not lived up to their promises. What's at stake is, you know, a particular understanding of the way power works.

I can't say it enough. It's like we can't think that dictatorships happen in the third world. We have this false sense of security if we think that we've been saved, we've been spared from it. History is being written everywhere. Vladimir Putin is revising history to show that Ukraine has always been part of Russia. Narendra Modi is recasting Indian history as primarily as Hindu history. So the use of history, even here in the United States, the use of history to justify autocracy, the suppression of dissent, to mythologize certain rulers, and to demonize certain political, religious,

or ethnic groups, is prevalent around the world, and the Marxists are part of what's an emerging and very dangerous global trend. That's it for this week's show. I'm Randa Abdel-Fattah. I'm Ramteen Arablui, and you've been listening to ThruLine from NPR. This episode was produced by me. And me and... Lawrence Wu. Julie Kane.

Anya Steinberg. Yolanda Sanguini. Casey Miner. Christina Kim. Devin Katayama. Yordanos Tisfazion. Thank you to Miel Gonzalez, Lenny Gonzalez, Carla Estevez, and Phil Harrell for their voiceover work.

Fact-checking for this episode was done by Kevin Vogel. This episode was mixed by Robert Rodriguez. Music for this episode was composed by Ramtin and his band, Drop Electric, which includes... Anya Mizani. Naveed Marvi. Sho Fujiwara. Also thanks to... And one more thing.

We're working on an upcoming episode about the ways motherhood is and isn't compensated. And we want to hear from you. What does motherhood cost? Call us and share your thoughts and experiences at 872-588-8805. And as always, if you have an idea or like something you heard on the show, please write us at ThruLine at NPR.org. Thanks for listening. Thank you. you give Grammarly to your entire team. Grammarly is a secure AI writing partner that understands your business and can transform it through better communication. Join 70,000 teams who trust Grammarly with their words and their data. Learn more at Grammarly.com. Grammarly. Easier said, done. Support for NPR and the following message come from the Kauffman Foundation,

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