The Conjugal Dictatorship

The Conjugal Dictatorship of Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos
utilizing them as links to heretofore unrevealed facets of the various ruses that
Marcos employed to establish his dictatorship.
Now, I have kept faith with the Filipino people. I have kept my rendezvous
with history. I have, with this work, discharged my obligation to myself, my
profession of journalism, my family and my country.
I had one other compelling reason for coming out with this work at the great
risks of being uprooted from my beloved country, of forced separation from my
wife and children and losing their affection, and of losing everything I have in
my name in the Philippines — or losing life itself. It is that I wanted to make
a public expiation for the little influence that I had exercised on the late Don
Eugenio Lopez into handpicking a certain Ferdinand E. Marcos as his
candidate for the presidency of the Philippines in the elections of 1965. Would
the Filipinos be suffering from a conjugal dictatorship now, if I had not originally
planted in Lopez’s consciousness in 1962 that Marcos was the "unbeatable
candidate" for 1965?
To the remaining democracies all over the world, this book is offered us a
case study on how a democratically-elected President could operate within the
legal system and yet succeed in subverting that democracy in order to
perpetuate himself and his wife as conjugal dictators.
I entertain no illusions that my puny work would dislodge Ferdinand and
Imelda from their concededly entrenched position. However, history teaches us
that dictators always fall, either on account of their own corrupt weight or sheer
physical exhaustion. I am hopeful that this work would somehow set off,
or contribute to the ignition, of a chain reaction that would compel Marcos to
relinquish his vise-like dictatorial grip on his own countrymen.
When the Filipino is then set free, and could participate in cheerful cry over
the restoration of freedom and democracy in the Philippines, that cry shall be
the fitting finish to this, my humble work
April 27. 1976
Primitivo Mijares Page 8