Forbes, Amy, and Mariano, Gary (2024) Censorship and the emperor's fake clothes: Media repression in the Philippines from Marcos to Duterte. In: Andersen, Robin, Higdon, Nolan, and Macek, Steve, (eds.) Censorship Digital Media and the Global Crackdown on Freedom of Expression. Peter Lang, New York, NY, USA, pp. 259-274.

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Abstract

[Extract] The desire to subvert democratic processes in the Philippines was never more apparent than in the days and weeks leading up to the declaration of Martial Law in the Philippines on September 22, 1972.1 Then President Ferdinand Marcos personally handpicked a journalist from the Manila Chronicle to manufacture story after story of an imminent attack on the metropolis by a purported 1000- plus strong Maoist New People’s Army among other communist insurgency threats.2 This action by a president desperate to remain in power is what critics would later call fake news. At the time, Marcos had been furiously trying to devise a way to prolong his presidency as he was on the second of two four- year terms allowed by the 1935 Constitution. The apparent solution was to call a Constitutional Convention (ConCon) in order to pave the way for a change in the system of government from presidency to parliamentary. By the time the ConCon was convened in 1971, Marcos had either bribed or coerced enough delegates to defeat the proposed “Ban Marcos” provision that would have prevented him, his wife Imelda, and relatives by affinity and consanguinity from seeking the post of Prime Minister.3

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