“Perception is real, and the truth is not.”
By Farah G. Decano
ABOVE title is a direct quote of Imelda Marcos’ statement in the documentary film, “The Kingmaker.” The statuesque First Lady of twenty years knew her politics well. During the reign of her husband, President Ferdinand Marcos, the Filipinos were shielded from the truth and were presented an alternate reality.
We cannot blame some of the Filipinos for believing in what they heard and saw during those times. The dictator’s assertions about the country’s peace and order, the economy and government programs were not easily verifiable then. Why? Because media was controlled and the transfer of information was snail paced. Worse, dissension was punished. Any news that countered the Filipino’s alternate reality was like illegal currency that was surreptitiously passed on from one to another.
I am reminded of Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s chief propagandist. Wasn’t it he who said, “If you tell a big lie and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” The former First Lady must have taken to heart his teachings.
Those who conspired with the dictator’s government in building non-existent “golden period” in the minds of the Filipinos must have been rewarded well in the same way that present social media trolls are paid a hefty monthly salary. If mere Malacañang party guests brought home Cartier watches as giveaways, I wonder what their minions of falsehood got. Probably a lot more. They should be given more because they need to be silenced and their loyalty must not falter.
Even the precursor of Martial law, which was the so-called ambush of Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile, was fake. He admitted to the falsehood on February 22, 1986, right before the 1986 EDSA Revolution. Now, he asserts the genuineness of his ambush.
Marcos presented to the Filipinos the ideas of “Maharlika” which means noble and depicted the Philippines as the land of the nobles. Who would not want their homeland to be portrayed with such majesty? Filipinos, with genuine pride in their hearts, followed Marcos’ vision. He was after all the brave who could take us all to the land of the royalties.
The brave one?
Marcos claimed that he had led a guerilla resistance unit during the Japanese occupation which became the image central to his rise in politics. He portrayed himself as the heroic guerilla leader and war hero idolized by many. It was during his 1962 senatorial campaign when he declared himself to be the “most decorated war hero of the Philippines.” He claimed to have been the recipient of 32 war medals and decorations, but researchers later found that stories about the wartime exploits of Marcos were mostly propaganda, being untrue and simply incredible.
Indeed, the Filipinos’ alternate universe was complete in its narrative. The Philippines was the land of the Maharlikas led by the brave chosen one.
This was the story built in the minds of the Filipinos. They were exposed to scenarios replayed with regularity on tv and over the radio about the Philippines as a progressive nation. At that time, we knew little about the tortures, the rapes and the disappearances of the militants who did not believe the Marcosian vision of a “Bagong Lipunan” or new society.
It is sad that despite two Aquino presidencies, some Filipinos are stuck in the fairy tale. Mind conditioning is now at its finest. It is time to make that fingers snap to deliver us from this nationwide budol-budol or hypnoticism. In the count of 1, 2, …wake up!
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