‘War hero’ Marcos a myth?

Press, 3 February 1986, Page 12

‘War hero’ Marcos a myth?

President Marcos, of the Philippines, sets great store by his claims to have headed a guerrilla unit during Japanse occupation in World War 11. The image of a war hero is central to his election campaign. STEPHEN ENGELBERG, of the “New York Times,” reviews the evidence.

The United States Army concluded after World War II that official claims by Philippines President, , Ferdinand Marcos, that he headed a guerrilla resistance unit during the Japanese occupation of his country were “fraudulent” and "absurd.” Throughout his political career, President Marcos has portrayed himself as a heroic guerrilla leader, and the image has been central to his political appeal. In almost every speech throughout his present re-elec-tion campaign, president Marcos has referred to his war record and guerrilla experiences, in part to show that he is better able than his opponent, Corazon Aquino, to handle the present communist insurgency. Documents that have rested out of public view in United States Government archives for 35 years show that repeated army investigations found no basis for President Marcos’s official claims to the United States. That claim was that he led a guerrilla force called Ang Mga Maharlika in military operations against Japanese forces from 1942 to 1944. Between 1945 and 1948 various United States Army officers rejected President Marcos’s two requests for official recognition of the unit, calling his claims distorted, exaggerated, fraudulent, contradictory, and absurd. President Marcos declined last week to respond to a list of six written questions about the United States government records, which come to light only recently. However, later in Manila, President Marcos did comment on the foreign press reports that his World War II military record claims were false. He did so by inviting war veterans to answer for him. Campaigning in the Manila shanty-town district of Tondo, President Marcos told a crowd estimated by reporters at 40,000: “Our opponents said that Marcos was not a true guerrilla, that he was not in the thick of the fight. The (war) veterans should answer that accusation.” In the United States Army records themselves, President Marcos wrote that he strongly protested the army’s findings, adding that “a grave injustice has been committed against many officers and men” of the unit.

Since Marcos became president, the Government-owned broadcasting network, the main north-south highway on the island of Luzon, and a hall in the Presidential Palance all have been named Maharlika — the name is variously translated as "The Free Men” or “Noblemen” — in honour of the unit. In . 1978, the Philippine National Assembly considered renaming the nation Maharlika. Army investigators finally concluded that Maharlika was a fictitious creation and that “no such unit ever existed” as a guerrilla organisation during the war.

In addition, the United States Veterans’ Administration, helped by the Philippine army, found, in 1950, that people who had claimed membership in President Marcos’s unit had actually been committing “atrocities” against Filipino civilians rather than fighting the Japanese. The records include no direct evidence linking President Marcos to those activities. The records, many of which were classified secret until 1958, were on file at the army records center in St. Louis until they were donated to the National Archives in Washington in November, 1984. In 1983, when a Filipino opposition figure asked for access to them a few weeks after the assassination in Manila that August of the opposition leader, Benigno Aquino Jnr., the army refused to let him see them. The officials said the request for the material, made by Dr Arturo M. Taca, was denied on the ground that it would violate the Philippine President’s right to privacy under American law. The officials also said the army, which had legal custody over the records, expressed fears that release of the documents could strain relations with the Philippines, a strategic ally. The war record of President Marcos has long been a subject of dispute. A succession of journalists and Filipino opposition leaders have gone to St. Louis in recent years in search of evidence at the National Personnel Records Centre. The records centre housed many of the Government’s documents on President Marcos before they were moved to the National Archives. In the Philippines, President Marcos is widely known as the nation’s most decorated war hero.

The Philippines Government says he won 32 medals for heroism during World War 11, Including several from the United States Army. Two of the medals were for his activities as' a guerrilla leader, but the rest were for exploits before the United States surrender in 1942 or after the return of United States forces to Luzon, the main Philippine island, in 1945. The validity of those medals has been challenged by Philippine and American journalists as well as others. In response, the Philippine Government has contended vigorously they were properly earned and said the records validating them were destroyed in a fire. When the Philippine newspaper, “We Forum,” published an article in 1982 questioning President Marcos’s war record, Government authorities shut the paper down. Alfred McCoy, an historian, discovered the United States Army documents among hundreds of thousands of others several months ago while at the National Archives researching a book on World War II in the Philippines. Professor McCoy was granted the access normally accorded to scholars, and when he came upon the Maharlika files he was allowed to review and copy them along with others. Archives officials did not learn what the documents contained until after they were copied. Professor McCoy, an American professor of history at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, said he was “stunned” when he found the records last summer. He said he worked with the records by himself until this month. He brought them to the attention of the “New York Times” last week. The records were reviewed at the archives, where archives officials confirmed their authenticity to the “New York Times.” Like thousand of other Filipinos, immediately after the war President Marcos asked the army to recognise his unit so that he and others could recive back pay and benefits. In his petitions, President Marcos certified his unit had engaged in numerous armed clashes with the Japanese, sabotage, and intelligence gathering throughout a vast region of Luzon, the main Philippine island, and had been the pre-eminent guerrilla force on Luzon. In his submissions to the army, he offered widely varying accounts of Maharlika’s member-

ship, from 300 men at one point to 8300 at another. In the years since the war, President Marcos has claimed that Maharlika was a force of 8200 men. Shortly after the war, the army did recognise the claims of 111 men who were listed on the Maharlika roster submitted by President Marcos, but their recognition was only for their services with American forces after the invasion of Luzon in January, 1945. One document says the service that President Marcos and 23 other men who were listed as Maharlika members gave to the Ist Cavalry Division in the spring of 1945 was of limited military value. The army records include conflicting statements on whether the United States intended to recognise the 111 men as individuals or as a Maharlika unit attached to American forces after the invasion. It is clear throughout the records that at no time did the army recognise that any unit designating itself as Maharlika ever existed as a guerrilla force in the years of the Japanese occupation, 1942 to 1945.

The records are a small part of a voluminous file containing more than one million documents on 'military activities in the Philippines during and after World War 11. Approximately 400 pages deal with matters relating to the Government’s investigations of Presi-’ dent Marcos and his claims. The documents, the latest of which are dated in the early 19505, include no indication that President Marcos appealed the army’s final ruling against him in 1948. ■ . : The last entry in the Maharlika file was an affirmation of the rejection. Assistant Secretary of Defence Richard Armitage, the senior Pentagon official in charge of. military relations with the Philippines, said his aides had been unable to find any record that the original army decision denying benefits to Maharlika had. been challenged or investigated after the 1948 ruling. "Subsequent to 1948 I am unaware of any further appeals,” he said. Donna St. John, a spokesman for the Veterans’ Administration, said: “We’re not paying any benefits to" Ferdinand Marcos.”