THE IMAGE
By Jose Alejandrino
THE MAGNANAKAW IMAGE
World leaders are subject to two judgments: the final judgment of God when their Book of Life is opened and the judgment of history on how they performed in public office.
For Bongbong Marcos, the judgment of millions of Filipinos seem to have been rendered judging by the huge protests in many Philippine cities and abroad asking him to resign. Commentators agree that the BBM government is the most corrupt in Philippine history. Certainly by referring to him as “magnanakaw” (thief) and to his cousin former HoR Speaker Martin Romualdez as a crocodile, there is little doubt they are the most hated and despised figures in the country.
Indeed BBM is carrying a heavy luggage.
1. His family is accused of not settling the $2-billion compensatory award rendered by a District Court in Hawaii in 1994-1995 to 7,500 Filipino human rights victims.
2. Administrators of the Marcos estate severally liable for payment of ₱203-billion estate taxes rendered by the Philippine Supreme Court as final and executory in March 1999 remains unpaid.
3. Bongbong Marcos, whom his father said in a tape recording submitted to a U.S. congressional hearing chaired by New York rep Stephen Solarz that his son Bongbong is the only one in the family who knows where his gold, estimated today at $40-43 billion, is stored. In a subsequent press interview, Bongbong admitted that what his father had said is true, that he alone knows where the Marcos gold is. Despite his father’s dying wish that 90% of the gold be returned to the Filipino people, Bongbong has not honored it.
4. After the scandal of the enormous corruption in flood control projects that were sub-standard or non-existent resulting in thousands of poor Filipinos losing their few belongings in the floods that turned Metro Manila and adjoining provinces into a gigantic swimming pool, broke out, Bongbong claimed he had no knowledge of the corruption despite the DPWH, the department in charge of the projects, came under his control. It took Bongbong three years since he assumed office to discover the enormous corruption involving trillions of pesos. The public did not buy his story and hundreds of thousands went to the streets to protest demanding his resignation.
5. The illegal insertions in the appropriations bill that Bongbong signed into law added to public indignation. His sister Sen. Imee Marcos, who refused to sign the BiCam report of Congress containing the insertions, had warned Exec. Sec. Lucas Bersamin not to make her brother Bongbong sign the bill into law. It was a red flag that should have alerted Bersamin to conduct “due diligence” for Bongbong to veto the illegal insertions. That he did not, made Bersamin an accomplice to corruption. Later, at a Blue Ribbon Committee hearing, a marine sergeant who was ordered to deliver suitcases containing hundreds of millions of pesos in cash to the residences of Speaker Martin Romualdez and of Zaldy Co, a congressman-contractor and close friend of Romualdez, testified he also delivered ₱15-million in cash to Malacanang, thereby arousing suspicion about Bersamin’s integrity.
6. The Office of the President paid for the Gulfstream jet that abducted on March 12, 2025 and transported former President Rodrigo Roa Duterte to be handed to the International Criminal Court (ICC) at the Hague. The kidnapping was a clear violation of Duterte’s constitutional right to due process. It was “politically motivated” as Sen. Imee Marcos said after conducting her own hearing on the matter. It was no secret that Martin Romualdez wanted the highly popular Rodrigo Duterte out of the way and Duterte’s daughter VP Inday Sara impeached because they were the principal obstacles to the continuation of the Marcos-Romualdez tandem in power after 2028.
7. Bongbong Marcos is accused of being a drug addict which probably explains his supernatural belief he can defeat the Chinese dragon in a war over Taiwan, like Ukraine’s Zelensky, known to be a drug addict, is convinced he can defeat the Russian bear. Coke is known to produce hallucinations of grandeur and invincibility. Bongbong refuses to take a drug test. If he is not a drug addict, why refuse a test to dispel people’s doubts? His sister Imee Marcos readily submitted to a drug test. The only logical explanation for Bongbong’s refusal is he is an addict. It also explains Martin’s hold over him. “You don’t want to be impeached, do you?” Martin reportedly asked Bongbong. Martin is Bongbong’s karma. They rise or fall together.
-- Jose Alejandrino
