Ilocos folk mark FM’s 89th birth anniversary

LAOAG CITY — With the theme "The Marcos Legacy Unto Infinity," supporters of the late former President Ferdinand Marcos commemorate his 89th birth anniversary here today.

As part of the celebration, there will be a civic-military parade to be presided over by former First Lady Imelda Romualdez-Marcos.

Lito Gorospe, spokesman of the Marcos family, cited the late former president’s legacy anchored on three pillars — freedom, justice and democracy.

He said it was Marcos who drastically reduced the period of stay of US bases in the country from 99 to 25 years, as embodied in the Philippine-US Military Bases Agreement, and decreased their total land area from 250,000 to 117,000 hectares.

"President Marcos did that in pursuit of freedom, at the risk of courting the ire of the US government. He was hated by US leaders for that," he said.

Gorospe said the Americans would have pulled out all their bases in the country in 1991 as a result of the Serrano-Bulan agreement forged in 1966. But he said this was cut short when Corazon Aquino took power in l986 and her government completely scuttled the bases.

Gorospe also cited Presidential Decree 27 as another Marcos legacy that mandated the redistribution of agricultural lands through agrarian reform. "This is his legacy on justice," he said.

On democracy, he cited PD 557 which he said institutionalized the barangay as the basic political unit in the country.