FERDINAND MARCOS: HIS LAST DAY AT THE PALACE

By Philip M. Lustre Jr.

Author's Notes: I wrote this article two years ago mainly to counter the efforts of certain people representing the dark forces in our country to revise our history in pursuit of their diabolical political agenda. 

Of course, Bongbong Marcos has lost in his vice presidential run. But his loss does not mean a stop to present the truth, or what had really transpired during the dark days of our country.

I originally wrote the article for my Facebook friends, but the CNN Phils. website took interest in my article and it was reposted on their website. This feature article is about the Marcoses' last day in Malacanang. 

Before and during the political campaign, those dark forces were harping that Marcos was the best president the country ever had. I am personally offended by such assertions. If he was the greatest, why did the Filipino people kicked him out of power in a near bloodless uprising that has become an international model - or template - for dismantling dictatorships? 

If he was the greatest, why did he ran like a defeated dog with his tail behind his hind legs? I have yet to get a satisfactory answer. I do not even think I could get satisfactory answers. 

History is our witness to show that the Marcos dictatorship was a despotic regime that has three legacies: over-centralized corruption, where Marcos received kickbacks from government contracts fact; crony capitalism, where Marcos nurtured his friends and cronies who exploited the economy; and wanton human rights violations, where tens of thousands were killed, tortured, jailed without charges, and suffered enforced disappearance.

The people who have tried, or have been trying, to twist history to suit their political agenda would be frustrated to find out that revisionism has no place in this country. That the people toppled the Marcos dictatorship is a historical fact. No buts, ifs and whys ...

(CNN Philippines) - What I would not narrate a scene from the movie  Titanic , when the ship was about to sink.

It just so happens that the scenes appear familiar, particularly those rats jumping out of the sinking ship.

This is to enable young people to answer and to understand what transpired on the last day of the dictator and the Palace.

This is part of my recollections regarding the EDSA People Power Revolution.

Even after that historic event, I continue to receive details and nuggets of information about the fateful four-day EDSA People Power Revolution and its aftermath.

One of the important historical antecedents refers to the last day of the Marcos in Malacañang.

That was on February 25, 1986.

On that day, Ferdinand Marcos, the dictator, who ruled the Philippines for 20 years, became hopeless, helpless, and powerless.

His power base, particularly the military establishment, had crumbled, as his military functionaries defected en masse to the rebel camp.

Then US President Ronald Reagan, always supportive of Marcos, changed tune upon the advice of the State Department and US Ambassador Stephen Bosworth.

It was a lingering discomfort that his last four days in Malacañang, particularly the last day, were not prominently mentioned in the accounts of the EDSA Revolution, unlike Adolf Hitler's last days in the bunker, which were the subject of several films.

As I collect, retrieve, and review my memories, notes, and first-hand interviews with some people who had something to do with Marcos, I have kept on discovering new details that have yet to come out in the open. This gives joy to a journalist. A journalist is a scholar too. This is the story:

FERDINAND MARCOS hardly went to sleep on that fateful February 25, 1986. How could he? When the clock struck midnight, he knew his grip on power was slowly loosening, as hordes of military officials kept on defecting to the rebel camp of Juan Ponce Enrile and Fidel Ramos, who staged an unimaginable breakaway from Marcos three days earlier.

A number of military officials went to Camp Crame to pledge support for the JPE-FVR camp, but others stayed in their respective areas of responsibility, camps, and command posts. They did not have to go to Camp Crame. They were already on the rebel side.

Rebel forces quietly negotiated for their defections en masse. All they did was to ignore the orders of Marcos and his subalterns like AFP chief of staff Gen. Fabian Ver and some minor officials, who remained loyal to Marcos. At that point, Marcos was beginning to become a king without a kingdom.

It was a big question whether the dreaded intelligence network created by Ver and his loyal troopers during the height of the Marcos martial law government was working to its desired efficiency during the last day of the EDSA Revolution. It had ceased working effectively.

Marcos and Ver did not have the sufficient intelligence information to which they based their decisions. They were acting erratically. They were sad and glum not because of exhaustion during the first three days of the Revolution, but because they already felt - although they did not knew yet exactly - that the end was coming.

Marcos started the day by arguing with Ver and son Ferdinand Jr., or Bongbong, who was in uniform fatigue to project his warlike stance, about launching an attack on Camp Crame, where the rebel forces were holed in.

Ver and Bongbong was pushing Marcos to give his final orders for the dwindling loyalist troops to blow Camp Crame to smithereens without considering the hundreds of thousands of civilians there, but they were rebuffed each time they approached the dictator, whose health was failing because of stress .

Only a day before, the rebel forces had gained air power after the Air Force pilots led by Col. Antonio Sotelo defected. The rebel forces also fired rockets to the Palace to give explicit warning to Marcos that they had the air power.

First Lady Imelda Marcos spent the first two or three hours of February 25 going in and out of the private chapel muttering some private prayers as if she was mobilizing the saints in heaven to drive away those hundreds of thousands of people, who massed along EDSA and the major thoroughfares that surrounded Camps Crame and Aguinaldo.

She could hear the fiery exchanges of arguments between her husband, Ferdinand, and Ver inside the dictator's study room, but she felt spent to involve herself in those fruitless conversations. Only Ver Bongbong and had the gall to continue the battle, mustering some courage to give orders to the loyalist troops to disperse the people at EDSA. But their orders fell on deaf ears. Not one among the available Marcos loyalist generals felt they could do the job.

By 3:00 am, Marcos called US Sen. Mark Paul Laxalt, the Republican lawmaker, who was a member of the bipartisan group of American lawmakers, who served as observers in the February 7 presidential elections snap.

Laxalt conveyed Reagan's proposed solution to the political impasse - powersharing with Cory Aquino. But Marcos was in no mood to accept the proposal. He was forthright to give an accurate situation, telling US lawmakers that the loyalist forces were losing. Laxalt hang up, telling him he would call again as soon as he talk to Reagan.

By 5:00 am (Philippine time), Laxalt was again on the phone talking to Marcos, who bluntly asked him if Reagan, whom he regarded as a friend, had changed his mind concerning his treatment of his government. The exchanges, which were recorded by scholars, were curt but poignant because they showed the pathetic state of a falling dictator.

"Is President Reagan asking me to step down?" Marcos asked Laxalt.

"President Reagan is not in a position to make that kind of demand," Laxalt replied.

"Senator, what do you think? Should I step down?"

"Mr. President, I'm not bound by diplomatic restraint. I am only speaking for myself. I think you should cut, and cut cleanly. The time has come," said Laxalt, combined with an air of authority and compassion.

Marcos did not speak for nearly two minutes, alerting Laxalt.

"Mr. President, are you still there?"

"I am very, very disappointed," Marcos said.

By this time, his feeling of an impending loss gave way to a firmer knowledge that he would have to leave sooner or later Palace in a disgraceful exit.

Marcos faced his remaining days at the Palace with a sentence already written on the palm of his helpless hand. It was a veritable but irreversible loss, although Marcos took steps to swing some concessions. But it was all over. Any effort to strike a deal was meant to prolong his agony.

A tearful Imelda felt hopeless too.

In a last ditch effort to save the situation, she personally called up the US First Lady Nancy Reagan to ask about the US intention to the country, but the latter could not give any firm commitment, telling her that she would have to talk to her husband.

Marcos also called up Labor Minister Blas Ople, who was in Washington on a diplomatic mission to convince US policy and decision makers about the "success" of the presidential elections, but the latter gave him a bleak report. By that time, the Marcos started packing up whatever they had and they could in Malacañang.

By that time too, Chief Justice Ramon Aquino and wife Carolina Griño Aquino woke up to prepare for the oath-taking of Marcos in Malacañang, where they slept.

Because of the tense situation, Marcos asked his security men on the late afternoon of February 24 to fetch CJ Aquino and wife from their residence in Manila.

As customary in previous presidential inaugurals, the Supreme Court chief justice administers the oath of office for the incoming or reelected presidents (Marcos was the only reelected president under the 1935 Constitution).

Marcos sweet talked Aquino to administer the oath. But because of the volatile situation, Aquino and his wife had to sleep in the Palace to ensure their availability for the oath.

Except the Soviet Union that crumbled later into a dozen or so republics, and most countries, notably Canada and at least a dozen European countries led by France, announced they would not send representatives to attend the oath-taking of Marcos in Malacañang.

They said that Marcos victory in the last election was tainted by fraud and admitted they were to boycott his oath. France went a step ahead, when it announced a few hours earlier after Cory Aquino took her oath on the same day that it had decided to recognize the legitimacy of the Aquino government.

Nevertheless, Marcos decided to push through with his own oath. His legalistic mind told him that an oath-taking was necessary to claim the presidency. He felt it was important at least for a show.

At the break of dawn, his supporters hurriedly mobilized thousands of Marcos loyalists from the depressed communities in Manila - particularly Tondo, Paco, and Santa Ana - and Quezon City. They took them by rented jeeps to serve as audience for the oath-taking in Malacañang.

By 9:00 am, the parade Palace grounds teemed with some 3,000 Marcos loyalists, many of whom were wearing shorts, sandos, slippers, and cheap rubber shoes. They were given white T-shirts emblazoned with "Marcos pa rin" and small flags and banners with the same message.

They kept on shouting "Marcos pa rin" and "martial law," as if they were the mantras of the falling Marcos government.

At the intersection of Nagtahan Bridge and JP Laurel Street, hundreds of left-wing activists appeared to have woken up from their slumber. They had realized that they could not just boycott the Filipinos' appointment with destiny.

They had felt they could not be a bunch of annoying fencesitters. They gathered there to push their own way to kick Marcos out of Malacañang. They nearly clashed with the Marcos loyalists.

Shortly before 11:00 am, Annapolis Street in Club Filipino in Greenhills, San Juan, about two kilometers from Camp Crame, Cory Aquino took her oath of office signaling her formal assumption of the presidency.

By 11:00 am, around 500 Marcos loyalists were admitted inside the Malacañang ceremonial hall, while the rest stayed on the parade grounds. Some wore slippers and sneakers. Others smoked in violation of the prohibition on smoking there.

Imelda wore her signature suit, while children Imee and Irene and their husbands were there wearing formal dresses. Bongbong was not around during the oath-taking, but he reappeared in combat fatigues when Imelda Marcos sang before the loyalist crowd at the Palace balcony of minutes after the oath.

Among the loyalists, who trooped to the Palace on that day was my relative, the Iglesia Ni Cristo convert, who was urged by their leaders to join the "exodus" to Malacañang.

Their leader, who functioned as brokers, promised them free food and transportation and P300 per person as "appearance fee." But because of the tense situation, the leader disappeared - only to resurface by night to give them P150 each. He told me they had to leave by 1:00 pm after they received a warning of a rebel attack on Malacañang.

Chief Justice Ramon Aquino administered the oath to Marcos.

But on the very day that Marcos laid his left hand on a copy of the Holy Bible and raised his right hand to start his oath, a military sharpshooter took an aim at the transmitter of the three TV networks and shot it without a mistake to end the live coverage of the three TV networks.

The simultaneous telecast went dead.

But Marcos went on with his oath-taking as if nothing had happened. Then, he addressed the loyalist crowd from the balcony, providing the Filipino people with a poignant image of a dictator. who was about to fall from power.

Marcos's running mate, Arturo Tolentino, Prime Minister Cesar Virata and more than half of Marcos Cabinet and almost all of the diplomatic corps were no shows, further projecting the message that the Marcos government was a sinking ship.

Some members of parliament belonging to Marcos KBL, like Jose Zubiri, even had the nerve to attend Aquino's oath taking, making them as among the first rats to jump out of the sinking ship.

For their part, Chief Justice Ramon Aquino and wife Carolina finally realized that Marcos was indeed losing the power play. They too received the warning of an impending rebel attack, prompting them to leave immediately after the oath.

Some witnesses said they saw them walking up to the area Singian Clinic on JP Laurel Street. Other witnesses said they detoured to Arlegui and reached Legarda, where they took a cab to go home. They did not take their lunch in Malacañang.

Information Minister Gregorio Cendaña likewise left in a huff after the inauguration. He did not take his lunch too.

Neither were the Malacañang press corps, who covered the oath-taking, given their usual lunch packs (Cendana's disappearing act became a butt of jokes among journalists who covered Palace).

Immediately after the oath, the first family retreated to resume the packing of their personal effects for a journey they could only feel at that moment.

The anticipated rebel attack did not materialize. Instead, Marcos kept himself busy for the preparations for their evacuation. He got in touch with Bosworth and requested him for a helicopter that would take them elsewhere without necessarily mentioning a destination.

At that moment, the pilots had deserted the Presidential Palace.

A number of the Presidential Security Command personnel had changed into civilian clothes and disappeared without a word.

Ver even started to go around the attendants to bid them goodbye, although it was not exactly clear why he was bidding them goodbye.

Plans were not firmed up until the early evening of February 25.

Marcos wanted to go to his home base in Paoay, Ilocos Norte. But Cory Aquino was adamant in her decision that he should go on exile in the United States.

It has become a standard joke among Filipinos that the American pilot, who manned the plane that took the Marcoses to the US, misjudged Marcos's request to take them to Paoay and instead, flew them to Hawaii.

By 10:00 pm, a helicopter picked up the Marcos and Ver families in the Palace and took them to the Clark Air Base in Pampanga. From there, a US plane took them to Hawaii for the awaited exile.

Marcos spent his last days there as a sick man and a political has-been.

He died there in 1989.

Meanwhile, a new government took over to start the arduous and tortuous journey to restore democracy in the country.