Marcos cites CIA records on dad’s wartime role
MANILA, Philippines (Updated Sept. 13) — Records and investigations of the US government have long looked into Ferdinand Marcos Sr.'s claims of heroism during World War II, but his son and namesake has proclaimed that his feats are recorded with the Central Intelligence Agency.
While celebrating Marcos Day in his bailiwick of Ilocos Norte on Wednesday, September 11, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. fondly recalled Marcos Sr.’s love for the country, saying he often looked to his father for wisdom. He had declared Marcos Day a holiday in the province, commemorating Marcos Sr.'s birthday.
The president recalled one of his visits to the US, where he claimed to have met with the director of the CIA. Marcos Jr. said he then asked the director if he could see his father’s files with the Office of Strategic Service (OSS), the precursor to the CIA.
“I asked them: ‘Can I see some of the records about my father when he was working with the OSS?’” Marcos said in a mix of English and Filipino.
“They allowed me. They took me to the records room and they started to show me many of the records, the reports that were given during the war that are still secret,” Marcos Jr. said.
Marcos Jr. said he asked the CIA if he could take the records home, but they told him the files remain classified.
Meeting with CIA chief
As president, Marcos Jr. has made multiple official visits to the United States since assuming office in 2022, with stops in cities such as New York, Washington DC, Arlington in Virginia, San Francisco and Los Angeles in California, and Honolulu in Hawaii.
Although he visited the Pentagon in Arlington, there is no public record of a meeting with CIA Director William J. Burns in Langley, Virginia. Reports reaching Philstar.com from the Philippine Embassy in the US, however, confirm the meeting with Burns.
Despite the lack of documentation on such a meeting and the documents shown to Marcos, historical records about Marcos Sr. have long been available. A New York Times article from 1986, republished on the CIA's website, discredited claims made by Marcos Sr. about leading a guerilla resistance during the Japanese occupation.
US Army officials involved in investigating those claims rejected them, with some calling the accounts fabricated and unsupported by evidence. The inconsistencies in the size and role of the guerilla unit further cast doubt on Marcos Sr.’s wartime narrative.
But Marcos Jr. said he saw some of these classified records during his father's time with the OSS. These classified records could potentially paint a different picture of Marcos Sr.'s activities during the war.
"I mean he was greater than even we realized. The things that he did, the things that — the sacrifices that he made for the Philippines," the president added.
The Marcosian legacy
In his speech on Wednesday's Marcos Day ceremony in his hometown, Marcos Jr. said his father's legacy was of service.
“The greatest service that he could do was to serve the entire country of the Philippines. So, if we are to continue on this important legacy that he has left us. What again will be our guide? How again do we know what is the right path to make it better for the Philippines? To make life better for all Filipinos,” Marcos Jr. said.
The Marcos family was ousted from power during the 1986 People Power Revolution after two decades of Martial Law under Marcos Sr., regarded as a dictator, whose rule was marked by human rights abuses and rampant corruption.
Yet history has not closed its chapter on the Marcoses. Their return to power was a slow climb, beginning from local seats of power in Ilocos Norte and the north in the early 1990s all the way back to Malacañan Palace in 2022.
Now, with Marcos Sr.’s daughter Sen. Imee Marcos in the Senate, their cousin Martin Romualdez helming the House of Representatives, and Marcos Jr. assuming at same seat of power his father once held, Marcos Sr.’s legacy is once again being evoked.
During his presidential campaign and throughout his tenure, Marcos Jr. has drawn upon the memory of his father.
“I’m always reminded of what was engraved in the museleo when my father was still buried here," Marcos Jr. said, referring to the mausoleum in Ilocos where the waxen corpse of his father used to lay. "And those of you that have been to the mausoleum will remember that it was one single word—Filipino. And that is the essence of my father." — Jean Mangaluz
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Editor's Note: Latest update on the report reflects confirmation of Marcos's meeting with the CIA director, William J. Burns.
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