I Witness

From the archive

"More than 20 years of dictatorship and censorship in the Philippines under Ferdinand Marcos left many a mystery. "Ghost of the Past lifts the veil on one of the most horrifying events of the Marcos era. It had long been widely believed that the collapse of a Parthenon-like building project of Imelda Marcos left scores of workers buried in cement. Rumor had endured that rather than risk not finishing the project in time for an international film festival, Imelda ordered bodies to be paved over, turning the place into an immense accidental tomb. The structure acquired a reputation as the most haunted building in the Philippines and became the source of numerous ghost stories. "The truth was also buried for more than a quarter of a century. The documentary producers searched for survivors, interviewed former workers, and found harrowing file video footage suppressed by the regime. For the first time, the tragedy and its socio-political environment were reconstructed and the facts unearthed. Victims were identified and humanized, their loved ones found. "Among the stranger coincidences, one of the first victims Identified was a Benigno Aquino, who shared the same name as the political dissident gunned down only two years later by the Marcos regime, an Incident that would lead to the dictatorship's eventual downfall. "After more than two decades, the project contractor surfaced to claim that the tragedy was caused by sabotage of the structure. Imelda Marcos herself refused to be interviewed, but video was found of an event where Imelda compared herself to the building, saying that they both suffered and were persecuted. "Some of the results of the investigation came as a surprise: the dead were fewer than had been widely believed, and perhaps none remained encased in the cement. In the course of the investigation, no one could be found claiming a family member or acquaintance still missing inside the building. "Among the lessons: the information vacuum created by censorship could easily be filled by rumors and urban legends much worse than reality. In a country that has yet to account for all the bloody excesses of the Marcos years, Ghost of the Past, helped close festering wounds and set the record straight, perhaps also helping the nation to move on."