First of 5 elements
BAGUIO CITY, Philippines – Vice President Leni Robredo liked to learn out supporters’ placards throughout her marketing campaign sorties for the Might 2022 elections.
On the Takder Kordi rally held on the Melvin Jones soccer grounds on this metropolis, one of many placards she learn was, “Bus Lang Ang Strong North.” It drew one of many loudest cheers from the 30,000 of us on the occasion.
The written quip referred to the Strong North Bus Strains, which was established in 2010 and primarily plied the Pangasinan-Manila route.
The predominantly younger viewers repeatedly roared “Awan ti Strong North!” (There may be No Strong North).
However every week later, the nation realized once more that the Strong North was nonetheless alive and rising.
In Ilocos Norte, in line with the ultimate rely, hometown son and former governor Ferdinand Marcos Jr. bought 356,221 votes in opposition to Robredo’s 10,043 votes.
Even in a 10-way battle, Marcos bought 95.84% of the vote.
The incoming president’s house province gave him the best successful proportion amongst all provinces within the nation.
Returns from the entire Ilocos Area – which additionally contains Ilocos Sur, La Union, and Pangasinan provinces – have been equal to 89.23% for Marcos if the election have been one-on-one in opposition to Robredo.
However the two different areas within the Strong North gave Marcos a fair increased proportion win. Cagayan Valley recorded 90.74% and the Cordillera went even increased with 91.37% for Marcos in a head-to-head contest with Robredo.
The one time areas I and II (Cordillera was previously distributed between the 2 areas) voted solidly was within the 1986 snap elections, when the late dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos, the president-elect’s father, gained over Corazon Aquino. She would later assume the presidency following the 1986 EDSA Folks Energy revolt.
Whereas the placard stated, “Bus lang ang Strong North,” that bus has carried the Marcoses to victory.
Cowl-up for fraud
Assistant Professor Reidan Pawilen of the College of the Philippines Los Baños describes the Strong North as a marketing campaign phenomenon.
In his paper, “The Strong North Delusion: An investigation on the standing of dissent and human rights throughout the Marcos Regime in Areas 1 and a pair of, 1969-1986,” Pawilen refers to Strong North as “the block voting habits of Areas 1 and a pair of that helped in electing Marcos to energy throughout his 20-year rule within the Philippines.”
Even then, the Strong North was not performed cleanly.
“Whereas the Strong North justified Marcos’ victories within the 1965, 1969, 1981, and the 1986 elections, the phenomenon additionally served a political operate and have become a propaganda that blanketed the huge electoral frauds throughout his time period,” Pawilen stated.
The eminent Ilocano scholar Arnold Molina Azurin supplied an identical definition to Strong North.
“It’s a propaganda that needs to be understood on this specific sense, a solo block of canvassed votes in Ilocano-speaking area or provincial district whether or not the ballots are counted recurrently or not, whether or not the votes are the precise results of election fraud resembling vote-buying or intimidation or another trickery, however what’s necessary is to make sure a successful margin of votes,” stated Azurin, creator of Reinventing the Filipino, Beddeng, and Past the Cult of Dissidence in Southern Philippines and Wartorn Zones within the World Village.
PAYING RESPECTS. Presumptive president Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Marcos Jr. visits the grave of his father, the dictator Ferdinand Marcos, on the Libingan ng mga Bayani in Taguig Metropolis on Might 11, 2022.
The Strong North of the son certainly follows the daddy’s Strong North playbook.
On this election, 595 precincts gave zero votes to Robredo.
Though greater than half of them have been in Sulu, nearly 100 have been within the Strong North space (45 in Abra, 20 in Ilocos Norte, 16 in Ilocos Sur, 6 in Apayao, 3 in La Union, and a pair of every in Kalinga and Ifugao, and 1 every in Isabela and Cagayan).
The final time this occurred was in 1986 when, for instance, 13,643 voted for Marcos Sr. in San Nicolas, Ilocos Norte, in opposition to 0 for Corazon Aquino.
Even then, worldwide observers referred to as this a “statistical improbability” – a time period used repeatedly by Marcos Jr.’s critics in these latest elections. (READ: The ‘fixed 47% ratio’ defined)
Whereas there are numerous parallelisms within the Strong North of father and son, there are additionally deviations.
However one factor stays fixed: the one passengers on the bus are the Marcoses.
Delusion-making
Ferdinand E. Marcos was not the primary Ilocano president. Elpidio Quirino, the son of a jail warden of Vigan, Ilocos Sur, gained as president over Jose Laurel in 1949, however the Ilocano race card was hardly used then.
Ferdinand Marcos fought president Diosdado Macapagal, the “poor man son of Lubao, Pampanga,” in his re-election bid in 1965.
It was then that the Strong North was born.
The Marcos-Macapagal contest was first a battle of personalities, utilizing fashionable tradition because the battleground.
ART FOR POLITICS. The late president Diosdado Macapagal had his life story was a film in 1963 as he staved off a problem from then-Senate president Ferdinand E. Marcos, however misplaced his re-election bid in 1965 to the ‘Strong North’ candidate. Photograph from Frank Cimatu’s assortment
Macapagal introduced out his film bio entitled The Macapagal Story in 1963, with Leopoldo Salcedo taking part in the lead function and Jose Padilla Jr., Liza Moreno, Lina Cariño, Jay Ilagan, Rosa Aguirre, Oscar Keesee, and Danilo Jurado in supporting roles.
The good Gerardo de Leon additionally got here out with one other film entitled Daigdig ng Mga Api, once more impressed by the lifetime of Macapagal. Film critics stated the film was a basic, though no copy could be discovered now.
Marcos then got here out with Iginuhit ng Tadhana (The Ferdinand E. Marcos Story), with a blockbuster forged together with Luis Gonzales as Ferdinand, Gloria Romero as Imelda, Vilma Santos as Imee, Chona as Irene, and Ferdinand Marcos Jr. as himself. That is the primary time that the youthful Ferdinand, nicknamed Bongbong, was used for propaganda.
The Macapagal Story was proven largely in Manila whereas Iginuhit ng Tadhana was proven within the provinces throughout the marketing campaign, notably within the Strong North.
In 1969, Iginuhit ng Tadhana had a sequel entitled, Pinagbuklod ng Langit. Directed by Eddie Garcia, it once more had Luis Gonzales and Gloria Romero because the Marcos couple and Vilma as Imee. Rosa Mia performed Doña Josefa Edralin whereas Gina Alajar performed Irene and Jojie Aranda as Bongbong.
There was truly a second sequel to this Marcos myth-making. This was Maharlika, about Marcos’ fabricated guerrilla exploits. It starred Dovie Beams, who curiously additionally grew to become Marcos’ mistress, which was why the film was not proven.
There was a November 1980 letter by Luis Nepomuceno of the Nepomuceno Productions, asking Imelda Marcos for assist as a result of his movie studio went bankrupt after the film was shelved.
“Throughout my final viewers with you in 1971 you entrusted to me the duty of safeguarding the movie, which we shelved from exhibition, entitled Maharlika,” Luis wrote Imelda.
The Philippine Nationwide Financial institution foreclosed Nepomuceno’s properties, together with his home, in 1974, however Imelda remained adamant about not bringing out the third movie.
MYTH-MAKING. The late dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos commissioned a e-book on his alleged exploits as a World Struggle II hero, however his claims and supposed medals and citations have been later debunked. Photograph by Frank Cimatu
Marcos additionally commissioned his biography, written in 1964 by a hack author named Hartzell Spence, entitled, For Each Tear a Victory: The Story of Ferdinand E. Marcos.
This predictably grew to become a bestseller within the Philippines because it was distributed without spending a dime in lots of Ilocos Norte cities.
Then-senator Marcos paid no less than US$15,000 in 1963 to Spence and likewise informed the writer McGraw-Hill that he would assure $10,000 in gross sales, in line with Leonard Saffir, the PR specialist employed by Marcos.
“Because of this in the event that they promote solely $7,000 price of books, we owe them $3,000,” Saffir defined to Marcos.
Pawilen stated that the e-book was “the place some controversial historic claims have been included resembling his function within the Second World Struggle and his struggle medals.”
Alfred McCoy, an American historian, nonetheless, was in a position to collect and consider the paperwork that Marcos submitted and discovered that the so-called paperwork on the Maharlika guerrilla unit that Marcos was presupposed to command have been cast, and that the medals that he claimed to have obtained from the US army have been faux.
“In 2013, the Nationwide Historic Fee of the Philippines printed an in depth evaluation on how the paperwork have been cast, full with precise pictures of the faux paperwork,” Pawilen wrote.
The victory of Marcos over Macapagal might be attributed to this historic revisionism, however in Ilocos, a extra sinister technique solidified the Strong North. – MR
(To be continued)
This collection has been made attainable by Internews.
