Marcos’ Ads Seek to Link Foes, Japanese

President Ferdinand E. Marcos, accused of being a fake war hero, is taking out campaign advertisements to tell voters that the parents of his election opponents collaborated with the Japanese.

Benigno Aquino Sr., father-in-law of presidential contender Corazon Aquino, was in the occupation government of wartime President Jose Laurel. Laurel’s son Salvador is her vice-presidential running mate.

Headlined “What Did Your Daddy Do When the Invaders Came?”, full-page paid announcements in pro-government newspapers note that while Marcos was fighting the Japanese, his election opponents were being educated in “most pleasant circumstances (by) the government of the enemy.”

1942 Paper Shown

The advertisements include a montage of a Manila newspaper article dated Sept. 4, 1942, headlined “Aquino Reiterates Faith in Japan,” a photograph of him lighting a cigarette for Japanese Prime Minister Hideki Tojo and of Aquino and Laurel seniors on a visit to Tokyo in 1943.

A postwar report made public in the United States last week said that a guerrilla group Marcos says he led against the United States never existed.

A spokesman for the Aquino-Laurel camp said the Marcos advertisement was “a very serious attempt to smear the candidates, but it’s foolhardy.”

“Both men were vindicated in elections after the war,” said Raul Contreras. “Jose Laurel was a very close second in the 1949 presidential election and was elected senator. Aquino senior was vindicated through his son Benigno (Corazon’s murdered husband) who was elected mayor, governor and senator.”