Marcos manages to silence the press
THE explosive exposé of 18 Marines, that they were ordered to act as mules to deliver P805 billion of graft money in cash to President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., his cousin, the former House speaker Martin Romualdez, and two dozen of their officials and allies in Congress has revealed the utter depravity of this regime.
More than that, it has torn down the illusion that we have a robust and free press that is a pillar of democracy.
Nearly all mainstream media, especially the broadsheets, did not publish the allegations the day after they were made. They didn’t even bury the story in the inside pages. The Philippine Star’s banner headline for that day “BBM: Talks under way for possible successor”; and the Philippine Daily Inquirer: “ICC tackles drug war role DU30 officials” — stories of no consequence at all.
Instead, the next day, they published Palace and Navy spokespersons’ very lame, blanket denials of the soldiers’ claims, which as I will discuss here, were so preposterous they even helped bolster the allegations.
If this were a functioning democracy — if our media still behaved like the adversarial institution they claim to be — sworn accusations involving hundreds of billions of pesos and the highest officials of the land would have triggered weeks of banner headlines, investigative specials and relentless questioning. Instead, what we witnessed was a media blackout.
Marcos’ father the dictator suppressed the press by closing all media under his martial-law powers, except the four which his cronies and his wife Imelda’s childhood friend owned, which published no news nor opinion critical of the regime.
The younger Marcos has outdone his father. Even with all media being privately owned, with two — the Philippine Star and the Philippine Daily Inquirer — claiming to be the guardians of democracy, Marcos managed to get all broadsheets and most of broadcast media to shut their eyes to the story that is the most damning allegation against this regime — the alleged delivery of P805 billion by Marines of graft money to him as well as his allies and officials.
Operator
Indeed, Levito Baligod, the Marines’ lawyer, claimed that several suitcases filled with cash were delivered to a known “media operator” in his residence at the President Tower along Timog Avenue in Quezon City, suggesting that payoffs were made to media for them not to report the Marines’ accusations.
The allegations are actually a follow-up to the claims made by former congressman Zaldy Co — Romualdez’s alleged operator — in November last year, which he backed up with photos and his ledgers, and partly by admissions made by Public Works department officials. The photos showed dozens of suitcases filled with cash that were allegedly delivered to Romualdez and other officials. The 18 Marines merely claimed it was they who transported and escorted the suitcases from Co’s office, and that it was they who carried them.
Co’s allegations made headlines for two weeks. This time though, the newspapers boycotted the Marines’ allegations. No newspaper representative, editor or columnist explained why the Marines’ allegations were not reported. Only one columnist, Antonio Contreras — in a media interview and not in his column — claimed the allegations were fake, and intended only to destabilize the Marcos government. He also made ignorant comments, for instance, that a suitcase filled with cash wouldn’t be so heavy as to have to be lifted by two Marines. How would he know? Contreras is vice chairman of the government’s propaganda unit PTV Network, from which he gets an income of P60,000 monthly.
I requested the executive of one newspaper to ask the paper’s editors why they chose not to report the marines’ exposé. The editors said that there was a “retraction” and that it turned out they were not real Marines. These editors should be fired for either being stupid or being in Malacañang’s payroll.
There was no retraction at all by the Marines. Yes, four turned out not to be Marines: One was a former Army soldier and the other three were security personnel. That still leaves 14 Marines — whether active or resigned at this time is irrelevant — making the very serious allegations. (For reasons of practicality, the group of whistleblowers was referred to as “18 Marines,” rather than the cumbersome “14 Marines, one army soldier and three security men.”)
Navy
The Navy spokesman Capt. Marissa Martinez tried — stupidly — to cast doubt on the credibility of the Marines by claiming that “most of them” had been dishonorably discharged. She was unable to give the exact number of those who were so discharged.
No government official has questioned the most crucial fact regarding the Marines’ allegations: That they were officially assigned at the relevant periods as Co’s bodyguards, which bolsters their claim that they were asked to physically carry the suitcases filled with cash.
Ombudsman Jesus Crispin Remulla, in whose office the Marines filed their complaint, dismissed in a TV interview the allegations as merely “political.”
“They want a coup d’etat to happen — that’s where this is headed,” he said. But isn’t the job of the Ombudsman to evaluate if a complaint involved violations of the law by government officials that should be prosecuted, and not to speculate on its political impact? He admitted though that he had not read the complaint “in its entirety.” Remulla’s reaction certainly reversed my earlier views that he was the sole white knight in his regime, dedicated to combating corruption. His self-appointed task seems to be to act as Marcos’ black knight to defend him.
Remulla shockingly said he would rather “let the people evaluate it, not me.” But isn’t it precisely the role of the Ombudsman to evaluate such complaints, and press charges in court if these were valid. What “people” did Remulla refer to? If he is referring to “public opinion,” this is certainly not feasible as this regime has suppressed media coverage of it.
What makes the suppression by media of the Marines’ exposé so shameful is not only the fact that it reveals the utter turpitude of this regime and its allies in Congress, that taxpayers’ money intended to prevent floods ended up in the bank accounts of high officials, and that uniformed men — trained at taxpayers’ cost as the defenders of the nation — were ordered to be accomplices to such crime, by acting as the mules to transport their loot. By looking the other way, the media shares the crime.
Credible
The Marines’ accusations are the most credible ever made in our modern history. Even with the vast resources of the Marcos regime and its goons, it has been able to convince only four people to manufacture lies against former president Rodrigo Duterte: the discredited former Navy lieutenant and senator Antonio Trillanes IV, two admitted killers and a lawyer desperately needing money — which the former senator promised him as “lawyer’s fee”— for his cancer treatment.
In contrast, 18 people have made the allegations against Marcos and his gang. Not only that, they have submitted photos of the cash-filled suitcases, provided dates and other details (such as the addresses of the officials the money was delivered to) to back up their allegations. Fabricating a story is difficult, but sustaining a fabricated story across many participants — 18 — is nearly impossible. Neither the Dutertes nor their supporters have the vast resources that would be required to reward such a large number of people with cash for pretending to be whistleblowers.
Equally important is the level of personal exposure created by the accusations. Publicly accusing powerful political figures of massive corruption is not a path for personal safety or advantage. It invites scrutiny, pressure, counter-allegations and prolonged legal battles.
Indeed, the marines claimed that certain officials demanded that they sign affidavits binding them not to reveal their transport of the suitcases and their recipients. When they refused, they received anonymous calls threatening them with death. Their exposé therefore was an act of desperation and self-preservation.
The structure of the allegations also deserves attention. The claims describe repeated operational processes: the movement of large amounts of cash, the handling and transport of funds, and the coordination of deliveries. These are not vague accusations but descriptions of logistical activity that would require planning and participation by multiple individuals. Fabricating a vague claim is easy; fabricating a detailed operational system that remains internally consistent under scrutiny is far more difficult. A complex narrative must account for roles, timelines and procedures that fit together logically.
Subtle
Another subtle but important detail strengthens the plausibility of the Marines’ account: their confidence in claiming how much cash was contained in the different sizes of suitcases: large suitcase, P50 to P70 million; medium, P30 to P40 million; and small, P15 to P25 million.
Ordinary soldiers — even myself — and those not exposed to logistics, banking or large-scale cash operations, generally have no intuitive sense of how much money can physically fit inside a suitcase. To point out such operational descriptions would require practical familiarity with the mechanics of transporting currency in bulk.
With Marcos’ success in suppressing the press, we are moving into a dangerous phase of this corrupt regime: with his control of the media, he can do anything.
Facebook: Rigoberto Tiglao
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Marcos manages to silence the press
Source: Breaking News PH
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