The Master Propagandist at work

For the past 41 years, Philippine newspapers have continuously reported that Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law on September 21, 1972. Ironically, the news reports commemorating that dark chapter in Philippine history were often accompanied by a copy of the front page of the Sunday Express displaying a photo of Marcos with the banner headline “FM Declares Martial Law”. 
That publication was the Sunday edition of the Philippine Daily Express, the pro-Marcos newspaper that was the only daily allowed to publish after martial law was declared. The headline appeared on Sunday, September 24, 1972 because martial law was declared the day before, on Saturday, September 23, 1972. Marcos astutely chose to declare martial law on a Saturday because there would be no school that day and no student rallies and protests to contend with.  
The pretext for declaring martial law was the staged ambush of the car of Defense Secretary Juan Ponce Enrile on the evening of Friday, September 22, 1972 (witnesses in the Wack-Wack subdivision reported that they saw military men spraying bullets on a parked car in their neighborhood).
On Saturday, September 23, Press Secretary Francisco “Kit” Tatad went on the air on all the TV stations to read the text of Presidential Decree 1081, officially announcing the declaration of martial law. A few hours later, Marcos himself went on the air to explain his justification for martial law which did not include any admission that he did so because he was barred by the Constitution from seeking a third term. 
In his personal diary entry for September 21, 1972, handwritten on Malacanang stationary, Marcos wrote, “Johnny Ponce Enrile…and Kits Tatad finished all the papers (the proclamation and the orders) at 8 pm.” The following day, Marcos posted this entry at 9:55 PM: “Sec. Juan Ponce Enrile was ambushed near Wack-Wack at about 8:00 pm tonight. It was a good thing he was riding in his security car as a protective measure… This makes the martial law proclamation a necessity.”  
Martial law was declared on Sept. 23 because of an assassination attempt that allegedly occurred on Sept. 22 but which was predicted on Sept. 21 by Marcos, Enrile and Tatad when they finished writing the martial law declaration.  
Enrile later admitted to New York Times correspondent Raymond Bonner, in his book Waltzing with the Dictator (1988, Times Books), that he and Tatad were members of the “Rolex 12” group which helped Marcos plan martial law. The group included: Gen. Fabian Ver; Armed Forces Chief of Staff Gen. Romeo Espino; Army chief Maj. Gen. Rafael Zagala; Maj. Gen. Ignacio Paz, head of Army intelligence; Air Force Maj. Gen. Jose Rancudo; Navy Rear Adm. Hilario Ruiz; Brig. Gen. Tomas Diaz, head of a key Constabulary unit; Brig. Gen. Alfredo Montoya, head of the Manila Metropolitan Command; Col. Romeo Gatan, commander of the constabulary in Tarlac; and crony Eduardo Cojuangco.  
Working in tandem with Marcos, the group prepared the list of all the opposition figures who would be arrested on the evening of Friday, September 22, 1972. The list included Senators Benigno S. Aquino Jr., Jose Diokno, Francisco Rodrigo and Rep. Ramon Mitra Jr. as well as distinguished members of the media like Joaquin Roces, Teodoro Locsin Sr., Maximo Soliven and Amando Doronila. Congress was shut down and the courts’ powers drastically curtailed. The father of the current president would serve 8 years in solitary confinement. In the 14 years of the Marcos Dictatorship, thousands of Filipino activists were arrested, torture and killed like Edgar Jopson, Liliosa Hilao and Lorena Barros. 
Why did Marcos change the date of when he declared martial law? 
Because of his obsession with numerology and with his lucky number 7, Marcos ordered that Proclamation No. 1081 be officially declared to be signed on a date that was divisible by seven. Kit Tatad dutifully complied with the Dictator’s command and September 21, 1972 became the official date that Martial Law was established.
 Tatad is apparently a huge fan of Joseph Goebbels, Adolf Hitler’s “Minister of Propaganda and National Enlightenment”. Goebbels famously said: “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.”  
A tribute to Tatad’s masterful propaganda skills is that Filipinos today still swallow his line that martial law was declared on September 21, 1972, allowing Marcos – even from his grave – to control history on his terms. 
And now, 41 years later, Tatad is still at it. When his martial law cohort Enrile came under attack because of government audits which exposed his regular consignment of his 200 million peso a year Pork Barrel allocation to bogus NGOs set up pork barrel scammer Janet Lim-Napoles, Tatad rose to his defense by attacking Pres. Aquino. 
In his Manila Standard column on September 16, 2013, Tatad reported that according to “highly authoritative sources”, President Benigno S. Aquino III spent several hours in “closed- door conversations” with Janet Lim Napoles, “the suspected mastermind in the alleged P10-billion pork barrel scam involving selected opposition lawmakers, before showcasing to the media her formal “surrender” to “the only person she trusted,” on the evening of August 28, 2013.”  
This was masterful propaganda. Don’t defend, attack. Don’t retreat, attack. Without once mentioning the name of any of his dubious sources, Tatad sought to discredit the damaging revelations made by whistle-blower BenHur Luy about the obscene amounts of money that was funneled by Napoles to Enrile and his senate cohorts, Jinggoy Estrada, Bong Revilla, Gringo Honasan – all of whom Tatad described as “selected opposition lawmakers”.  
Movie star Sen. Bong Revilla, the son of a movie star politician, claimed that the filing of plunder charges against them is “a case of the administration doing a demolition job on the opposition.” The Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) discouraged his use of that excuse.”It won’t work this time,” they said 
Columnist Conrado de Quiros went further. “What exactly makes them the opposition? What are they opposed to? The way things look, they’re opposed only to honesty, they’re opposed only to public service. In his particular case, his signature on Napoles’ vouchers is all over the place. No amount of shouting forgery will change the fact.”  
Another movie star son of a movie star politician, Sen. Jinggoy Estrada, complained to the press that “They are conditioning the mind of the public that we are the worst thieves, and that I cannot accept.” The problem was, as the Philippine Daily Inquirer noted, “Estrada didn’t deny that he and his co-accused are thieves, only that they are the worst ones – which may be technically true.”  
“Guinness lists Ferdinand Marcos as having made off with the largest loot in the country’s history. Ex-presidents Joseph Estrada and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo have both been accused of the heinous crime of plunder, with the former convicted of it and the latter’s nine-year stay in Malacañang pockmarked by one corruption scandal after another.” 
The Inquirer editorial continued: “The three senators are at the top of the sordid food chain of government officials and enterprising outside operators like Napoles who, according to the NBI and the Department of Justice, conspired to profit from the misappropriation, conversion, misuse, and malversation of their Priority Development Assistance Fund, or PDAF.”
Because Senators Bong Revilla and Jinggoy Estrada bungled their defense, it would be up to veteran propagandist Tatad to clean up their mess and show the rank amateurs how it’s done. First, make up a straw man story, then proceed to knock it down. The more ridiculous the charge you make up, the more credible it is.  
In a fashion that would make Goebbels proud, Tatad concocted the Aquino-meets-Napoles-for-lunch-before-her-surrender story. He then made up the horrified reaction of alleged Aquino supporters to the news -“To them, it affects the whole fabric of morality in government, and ultimately Aquino’s moral fitness to remain in office.”  
Excuse me. Moral fitness? This judgment coming from a man who faithfully served the Marcos family for more than 50 years? 
Of course it doesn’t matter that Aquino did not have lunch with Napoles because, as Presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda said, “The President was at two high-profile events at 10 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. with hundreds of attendees. At both events the President also delivered speeches, the videos of which are now collectively embedded on the President’s Day page for Aug. 28, 2013.”  
A master propagandist will never let facts get in the way of the story. In his article, Tatad increased the hyperbolic volume by attributing a priceless quote to his unnamed sources about their reaction to Aquino’s alleged lunch meeting with Napoles.  
“This is worse than Nixon’s Watergate,” (Tatad wrote) they said. “They’ve taken all of us for a ride, with no compunction or remorse. They are all morally bankrupt; they have no respect for the truth.”  
Ironically, Tatad’s words are a perfect epitaph for the Marcoses and their lackeys. 
The tragedy is not just that the perpetrators of the martial law nightmare are still at it 41 years later but that many of us still swallow their lies.
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