Scrutinizing Ilagan’s alleged death threat

“Observers opine that the alleged death threat is a publicity gimmick to promote the coming film ‘Oras de Peligro’

Two days after the start of the new year, playwright Bonifacio Ilagan reported to the Quezon City police that he had received a death threat.

According to Ilagan, a man called him up on the telephone and threatened to kill him. The caller supposedly told Ilagan to stop what he was doing, and that a final order to kill Ilagan will be issued.

Ilagan said the caller introduced himself by name and said he was the commander of a unit assigned to kill communists. Surprisingly, Ilagan could not remember the name of the caller because he “wanted to hear what he was driving at, and that concerned me.”

Ilagan said he had no idea what the caller wanted him to stop doing, and that he had been silent since President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. was elected last year. Ilagan describes himself as a victim of the martial law administration of President Bongbong’s late father, President Ferdinand E. Marcos Sr. He claims he was tortured by soldiers when he was supposedly detained for about a year, until his release in 1976.

A news report said that Ilagan regularly speaks at anti-martial law events and rallies. He is a co-founder of two anti-Marcos groups, namely, the Movement Against Tyranny and the Campaign Against the Return of the Marcoses and Martial Law, which calls itself CARMMA.

Both groups are virtually unheard of in these contemporary times, especially now that the insurgency has weakened in the Philippines.

In particular, CARMMA is a big failure, in view of the landslide victory of President Bongbong in the May 2022 election. The people have spoken, and insinuations of unspecified election fraud are belied by the massive votes cast for President Bongbong.

Ilagan is reported to have attended a local memorial for the late Jose Maria Sison, the founder of the moribund Communist Party of the Philippines, who passed away last December. The CPP does not conceal its hatred of President Marcos Sr. because the latter’s constitutionally permitted resort to martial law in September 1972 effectively derailed Sison’s ambitious plan for an eventual communist takeover of the Philippines.

All the foregoing notwithstanding, CARMMA confederates quickly blamed the alleged death threat against Ilagan on the Marcos family, albeit without any evidence to back up their accusation. That unfounded accusation underscores the obvious anti-Marcos bias of the group.

It will be recalled that the CPP blamed the bombing of the Liberal Party proclamation rally held at Plaza Miranda in Manila in August 1971 on then-President Marcos Sr., even without evidence to support their claim. Years later, it was discovered that Sison was behind the bombing. Sison had hoped that the carnage from the incident would trigger the collapse of the Philippine government. President Marcos Sr. proved Sison was mistaken.

Observers believe that the alleged death threat against Ilagan is a hoax. How Ilagan, an active playwright, and screenwriter, who remembered in detail the threat relayed on the phone to him by the caller, is unable to recall the name of the caller given to him by the caller himself, is baffling.

Ilagan’s sudden bout of forgetfulness, they say, is not in accord with human reality and experience.

More specifically, observers opine that the alleged death threat is a publicity gimmick to promote the coming film ‘Oras de Peligro.’ This film is being touted by its publicists as a “corrected version” of last year’s local motion picture, Maid in Malacañang, which was a box office success.

Incidentally, Maid in Malacañang is a work of fiction. Anti-Marcos elements claim, again without evidence, that ‘Maid in Malacañang’ is a rewriting of the details about what the Marcos family did before they left the presidential palace at the height of the 1986 EDSA Revolt.

‘Oras de Peligro’ will play at local cinemas by next month. Ilagan wrote the screenplay for ‘Oras de Peligro.’ That may be the impetus for Ilagan’s alleged death threat.

“Ilagan describes himself as a victim of the martial law administration of President Bongbong’s late father, President Ferdinand E. Marcos Sr.