Aside from Primitivo “Tibo” Medrana Mijares, there are over ten thousand victims who were lost in the dark era of the dictatorship. Notably, the family of Tibo Mijares lost the youngest son Boyet who was found dead with signs of torture. There too was the youthful Archimedes “Archie” Francisco Trajano, an engineering student who raised a question during a gathering of youth leaders why Imee Romualdez Marcos was national president of the Kabataang Barangay. He was seen being accosted by militia men after that event. His dead body was later found dead from torture. His death is linked to Imee Romualdez Marcos who reportedly told a US court that it is true that Archimedes “Archie” Francisco Trajano was killed but it is none of the court’s business.
In August 1983, Ferdinand Edralin Marcos underwent kidney transplant at the National Kidney Transplant Institute (NKTI). It was reportedly the young Ferdinand Romualdez Marcos who was reportedly the kidney donor for his father. The operation was conducted by Dr. Enrique Tangonan Ona, Jr., the Philippine National Kidney Center (PNKC) Transplantation Director and Dr. Potenciano Baccay, NKTI Assistant Director during that time. Another operation was performed on the president by the said doctors sometime in November 1984 at the National Kidney Foundation in Manila as reported by the Pittsburgh Press and Newsweek magazine.
The kidney ailment of president Marcos was a well-kept secret from the public. He claimed that US doctors are treating his kidney ailment. When Dr. Baccay disclosed to the media that they were treating the president, he was reported abducted by unidentified men. Dr. Baccay was found dead bound with nylon cord inside his car. Varied reports were released on the death of Dr. Baccay, one alleging that the doctor was seen being taken by clean-cut men, another reported that the rebels were the suspects of the killing.
A total of eleven thousand two hundred twenty-nine (11,229) are listed in the Bantayug ng mga Bayani and recognized by Republic Act Numbered 10368. Some were considered desaparecidos, many were tortured and a few survived to tell the ordeal they suffered from the hands of the military that used torture just to extract admissions that they are communists. These victims painstakingly went through electrocution of the genitals, being made to sit on a block of ice and being subjected to what is known as Russian roulette where a revolver is poke with one live bullet is poked on the head of the victim. The excruciating physical and mental torture were too hard to bear and now too painful to recall.
These are facts and true stories that no amount of power can ever successfully erase in our history.
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