The Conjugal Dictatorship

The Conjugal Dictatorship of Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos
Chapter II
‘Manila-Gate’
“For a foreign head of state to attempt to bribe a
congressional witness is unprecedented. The amazing
story began a few months ago when Mijares walked out of
Malacanang, the presidential palace, after three years as
Marcos’ confidant and propagandist.”
Thus read a key portion of the widely-syndicated “Washington Merry-Go-
Round” column of July 2, 1975.* 1
(*1. Washington Post, Page F-ll. The New York Daily Post published in its July 3, 1975, issue
an editorial on the same subject, entitled “Manila-Gate.”)
How true it is that Washington, D.C. has always been a situs for airing, and
even violent settlement, of disputes between opposing factions of certain
foreign governments. It is a favorite hunting ground for foreign governments in
their recruitment of American senators and congressmen who might be willing
to make trips to their countries where the special guests could be wooed with
wine, women and whatever. The general idea is to improve the attitude of U.S.
solons towards a beleaguered foreign government which might be having a bad
image in official Washington or in the U.S. mass media.
One of those established by Washington, D.C. observers as notorious for
his massive lobbying campaign in the U.S. capital was Dominican Dictator
Rafael Trujillo who had earned such a bad image of corruption and repression
in his country at one time. However, it has been reported that Trujillo’s bribery
and entertainment in the homeland, and the highly effective representation
made by his ambassador have also succeeded in bringing about an
improvement of the Trujillo image in Washington, D.C.
In another area of counter-lobbying in the U.S. capital, agents of opposing
foreign interests have resorted to assassinations in pursuit of their objectives.
One victim of such assassinations was Colonel Yosef Alon, military attache of
the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C., who was gunned down on July 1,
1973, by a group of assailants who escaped by car in the Maryland area. The
Voice of Palestine Radio in Cairo subsequently claimed that Alon had been
executed by their agents in reprisal for an assassination a few days earlier of
an alleged Palestinian Black September representative in Paris.
Philippine lobbying in Washington, D.C. as well as its Trujillo-like penchant
for wooing visiting American officials has not received much denunciatory
notices from the U.S. press. Obviously, much more attention has been
concentrated on the authoritarian government which President Marcos
imposed in Manila on the eve of the conclusion of his constitutionallyallowable
eight-year hold on the Philippine presidency.
It is a fact that the conjugal dictatorship of Ferdinand and Imelda in the
Primitivo Mijares Page 34