Marcos defends dad over generals in drag

MANILA, Philippines – The son of Ferdinand Marcos has rejected a recently released US government account that his late father forced military chiefs to parade in drag at a birthday party.

Senator Ferdinand “Bong-Bong” Marcos Jr. said he had himself seen generals perform skits which were “meant to make the audience laugh,” but the account of them being made to dress in drag against their will was “like a stereotypical scene” from a Hollywood film.

According to declassified secret cables that were published by whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks this week, Marcos forced his military chiefs to parade as women during a tasteless, sycophantic birthday party planned by his unstable wife.

The documents were among a series of blistering criticisms of Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos made by US ambassador to the Philippines in the mid-1970s, William Sullivan.

“Assuming the reported communication were true that some generals were in women’s clothes during a party at the Palace, I’m sure it was all done in the spirit of merriment and entertainment,” Senator Marcos said in a post on his Facebook page.

“If what then Ambassador (Sullivan) watched was beneath his taste, I’m afraid that’s personal to him.”

The senator, now 55, said he was attending school in England at the time of the party in question but added that he had also seen the generals on occasion perform a skit “meant to make the audience laugh.”

He did not say whether the skits involved dressing up in drag, but he rejected the diplomat’s account of the generals being made to dress up as women against their will.

“That sounds like a stereotypical scene of a hollywood film depicting a banana republic,” he said, adding that “many American diplomats of that era” tended to treat the people of developing countries “like second class citizens”.

Marcos ruled the Philippines for nearly 20 years until an army-backed “people power” uprising involving millions of people forced him to flee to exile in the US in 1986. He died in Hawaii three years later. – Rappler.com