And so was Imee Marcos judged and convicted in the case Trajano vs. Marcos docketed as 978 F 2d 493 in a district court of Hawaii. It is time to review how the US court rebuked Imee for her responsibility, now that she is asking accountability for the extradition and imprisonment of Rodrigo Duterte. Know why she is the perfect poster girl for hypocrisy.
It took two days for Archimedes Trajano’s whereabouts to be known after the bodyguards of Imee Marcos seized him on August 31, 1977 at the Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila. On September 2, 1977, his mother Agapita Francisco Trajano found her son’s body in a morgue.
“He was covered in a white sheet, lying on a table. And when I opened the sheet . . . I saw him black and blue . . . I could not talk . . . nothing . . . but I think my heart hardened. I said, my God, why him?”
For questioning why the national chairmanship of the Kabataang Barangay must go to the president’s daughter, the 21-year old student was deemed an enemy of the state. And the state was the Marcos family, not the Filipino people. For sure, Imee Marcos saw her bodyguards drag Trajano away from the scene. She certainly knew his fate – torture and death.
Agapita Trajano could have filed charges against Imee’s military bodyguards. But nobody does that kind of redress during the Marcos dictatorship, much less to charge the dictator’s daughter for murder and torture. A dictatorship is not under the rule of law but the dictator’s terror.
Fathom this grief if we can – it took Mrs. Trajano nine years to file a case against Imee Marcos, and only when the Marcos dictatorship had ended and the family had been expelled to Hawaii. On March 20, 1986, almost a month after the ouster of the Marcoses, Agapita Trajano filed a case of false imprisonment, kidnapping, wrongful death, and the deprivation of rights for Archimedes Trajano in a federal court of the District of Hawaii.
Imee never appeared in court. Hence a default judgment against her was made on May 29, 1986. In 1991, she asked the court to set aside the verdict on the basis of insufficiency of service. Her motion was denied and the court then made a damages hearing, awarding to Mrs. Trajano $4.16M in damages and attorney’s fees, pursuant to Philippine laws.
The district court pronounced, “judgment was entered based on the court’s findings that Trajano was tortured and his death was caused by Marcos-Manotoc. The court concluded that this violation of fundamental human rights constitutes a tort in violation of the law of nations under 28 U.S.C. Statute 1350.”
Imee appealed the verdict in the US Court of Appeals 9th Circuit. She contended that yes, Archie Trajano was tortured by her bodyguards. Yes, she knew about the torture. And this next was her principal argument: the Hawaii district court should not have proceeded because it only has jurisdiction for torture acts that happened in the US.
Imee appealed the verdict in the US Court of Appeals 9th Circuit. She contended that yes, Archie Trajano was tortured by her bodyguards. Yes, she knew about the torture. And this next was her principal argument: the Hawaii district court should not have proceeded because it only has jurisdiction for torture acts that happened in the US.
And then the abominable quote she had uttered in one of the hearings: “Yes, Archimedes Trajano was tortured and killed but it’s none of your business.”
The appeals court finally ruled in 1992 that the court had jurisdiction against Marcos-Manotoc for having caused the wrongful death of Archimedes Trajano by official torture. Imee was officially a convict. The case became noted among American legal scholars and paved the way for several suits to be filed.
The hearings also attracted several amici curiae (friends of the court) who were allowed to bare information on the case, among them Human Rights Watch, Human Rights Clinic, and the Center for Constitutional Rights. The entire decision of the 9th Circuit appeals court can be perused here as researched by journalist Raissa Robles.
Agapita Trajano then went to the Regional Trial Court of Pasig for the civil enforcement of the foreign court verdict docketed as Civil Case No. 63337. Why Pasig? In one court hearing on the other Marcos cases in the Philippines, Bongbong Marcos had testified that his sister Imee lived in Alexandra Homes Condominium at No. 29 Meralco Avenue, Pasig City.
Again, Imee snubbed the hearings. The RTC judge declared her in default. Imee ran to the Court of Appeals for a Petition for Certiorari and Prohibition. This time, she argued that the summons sent to Alexandra Homes and which was received by her alleged caretaker Macky dela Cruz was invalid because the address was not her dwelling place, she having taken residence in Singapore.
In the RTC Pasig, Mrs. Trajano had presented evidence otherwise. There was the logbook of Alexandra Homes that showed entries of Imee arriving and leaving the condominium. The Sheriff’s Return of Summons was also recorded in the logbook. The Court of Appeals rendered its decision on March 17, 1997 upholding that the Alexandra Homes address was indeed a property of Imee’s partner Tommy Manotoc.
Imee elevated the case all the way to the Supreme Court. It was raffled to Associate Justice Presbitero Velasco as ponente. Velasco’s ruling was a total disappointment and a foregone conclusion. He averred that the Alexandra Homes address was merely an allegation. He also noted that Mrs. Trajano and the Sheriff took no effort to locate Marcos-Manotoc. In other words, it shifted the burden to Mrs. Trajano for not following strict compliance of the service of summons.
Both decisions of the RTC Pasig and the Court of Appeals were reversed. Associate Justices Leonardo A. Quisumbing and Dante O. Tinga concurred.
A very useful reference on Presbitero Velasco: he also ruled in favor of the burial of dictator Ferdinand Marcos Sr. in the Libingan ng mga Bayani.
Imee Marcos, who had admitted to the torture and killing of Archimedes Trajano, was acquitted on a technicality, but not on her culpability for murder. She remains guilty in our public eyes.
Today, she makes noise in the Senate to be noticed – to gain points from Duterte Diehard Supporters and their votes to prop up her abysmally kulelat standing in the polls. She is doing a senate hearing in aid of election. She continues to be a liar.
“Yes, Archimedes Trajano was tortured and killed but it’s none of your business.” Well, let’s make it our business to hold her accountable. For one, let’s not put her back in the Senate.
The views in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of VERA Files.
