Imee’s shame, and the

resurrection of the
Marcoses
By: Sherry P. Broder - @inquirerdotnet
Philippine Daily Inquirer / 05:20 AM September 21, 2018

What message does a university send to its students when it honors an adjudicated
perpetrator of human rights?

The recent Kabataang Barangay reunion and anniversary celebration honoring Imee
Marcos at the University of the Philippines was perverse and shameful by lauding the
perpetrator of a brutal torture and murder of a university student. In 1977, Imee had
been appointed the national chair of the Kabataang Barangay by her father Ferdinand
Marcos. On Aug. 31 of that year, she conducted an open forum discussion at the Mapua
Institute of Technology. Archie Trajano, a 21-year-old Mapua student, attended. When
Trajano asked a question about Imee’s appointment as the head of the Kabataang
Barangay, he was dragged away by the presidential daughter’s guards and later tortured
to death.

When Imee fled with her family to Hawaii in 1986 during the People Power
Revolution, the mother of Archie Trajano sued Imee in a US federal court. A poignant
moment in the trial of the case was when the remains of Archie, exhumed and sent to
Hawaii, were displayed in court by a forensic pathologist.

Imee was found liable for Archie’s death and assessed damages of $4 million. Imee
appealed. A unanimous US Federal Appeals Court affirmed her liability, stating that
Trajano “was tortured and murdered for his political beliefs and activities. Marcos-
Manotoc controlled the police and military intelligence personnel who tortured and
murdered Trajano, knew they were taking him to be tortured, and caused Trajano’s
death.”
Imee, Ferdinand Marcos’ oldest daughter, consolidated and hid the wealth embezzled
and plundered by her father from a safe haven in Morocco under the protection of that
country’s king. This was after Imee fled the United States to avoid a subpoena to appear
before a grand jury to testify in an investigation into the corruption during her father’s
20-year rule.

Today, that wealth is the foundation of the political comeback being staged and
orchestrated by Imee and her brother, Bongbong. The Kabataang Barangay was
abolished in 1986, following the Edsa revolt that toppled the Marcos dictatorship.

Trajano was only one of some 10,000 Filipinos summarily executed, or who were
tortured and disappeared, during the Marcos military dictatorship. Imee’s “forgive and
forget” mantra seeks to whitewash the brutality and assault on human rights conducted
by the Marcos regime.

The recent incident at UP compounds the pain and anguish endured by so many
Filipinos during the Marcos regime. By allowing an event that honored Imee, the
university turns a blind eye to the horror perpetrated by her against a university student,
and supports a culture of impunity.

SHERRY P. BRODER, counsel to Trajano and has represented the victims of human
rights abuses against Ferdinand E. Marcos since 1986

Read more: https://opinion.inquirer.net/116233/imees-shame-resurrection-

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