  It is the principle of buoyancy, but this Archimedes was found floating in a pool of his own blood. In August, 1977, two months before his 22nd birthday, Archimedes Trajano was beaten, tortured and killed for asking a question in a public forum of Imee Marcos. Imee was giving a talk on the Kabataan Baranggay at the Mapua Institute of Technology. There was an open forum and Archimedes Trajano stood up and asked a question which apparently angered Imee. Archimedes Trajano never got an answer and was forcibly taken out by the bodyguards of Imee. He was found days later on a Manila street, dead, his body and face badly bruised and swollen. His mother, Agapita was informed by the police that her son was killed in a dormitory fight but witnesses said that Archimedes Trajano never returned to his dorm after he was dragged out of the forum. Fearing for their safety, the Trajano family left the Philippines. After the People Power revolution, a class action suit was filed by human rights victims against the Marcos family. Seeking justice for her son, Agapita Trajano joined the litigants. Her case was taken by American human rights lawyer Sherry P. Broder. Broder was deeply moved by Trajano's case and represented the family pro bono. In 1993, Hawaii court Judge Manuel Real found Imee Marcos liable for Trajano's murder and ordered her to pay $ 4.4 million to Trajano's heirs....Justice finally? A summons was served to Imee in 1993 by the Pasig Regional Court. At that time, Imee's known address was at the Alexandra condominium in Pasig. A court sheriff served the summons but only a caretaker of the condominium had received the papers. To make a long story short and to cut through all the legal mumbo-jumbo, the summons was never "received properly" and the summons lapsed. All Imee had to do was to claim that she was not a resident of the Alexandra condominium where the summons was served...and that's exactly what she did, filing a motion to dismiss before the Pasig court, showing her Philippine passport and a "disembarkation/embarkation" card issued by the Singapore Immigration Service to show she was a resident of Singapore at the time. Nice. In 2006, the Supreme Court voided the civil proceedings before the Pasig courts where the Trajano family was seeking the enforcement of the US court ruling ordering Imee to compensate them for the murder... All because the courts could not "effectively serve" the summons. Well geez, from the time Imee returned to the country, wasn't she on the cover of every glossy magazine, interviewed by all the major networks, even having a short stint as a comedic actress opposite Rosanna Roces in a telenovela? How hard was it to track her down at her known address? I suppose Imee would just pop up for those photo shoots and interviews and then vanish into thin air huh? And we wonder why we pardon and free murderers, plunderers and rapists?  | Wow...this just blows me away. And you're right--she's all dolled up and glamorized now. I have a feeling that the people who put her in all those magazine covers were a tad guilty too of a few things themselves. Keep 'em coming direk. It's easy to forgive someone kooky and funny especially when we remember them as rich and powerful; "Si Imee Marcos...masa din pala?! Kaka-aliw!"
These brutes know the media game and can play it like anything. That's why people need to know these things and keep that healthy disbelief at hand. |
 | sometimes it is just so unreal to me. you just have all this information in your head then you remember them in between a 2 hour debate on how small the supers are on this frame or how un-pink the pink of this product is.. then you wonder, am i actually dead and living in hell? |
| kaya nga you have to write these things...or find some form of art to express them in ...WORK is a place where your ideas can go; ART is what happens when you get there and grow. If you take the world along with you, all the better! |
 | What was the fatal question? |
| i knew someone was going to ask. a report mentions that he asked about the conduct of the 1976 referendum on his father's tenure. the more interesting angle (of course always the unconfirmed one) was that Trajano was a one-time boyfriend of Imee. curiously, the information came from the Sherry Broder law offices. |
 | psst, mike. we should do a website exposing all these things. where are the trajanos now? we shoudl ask them what happened next. we should email imee and ask HER what happened next.
why do we let things like these just pass unnoticed in the philippines? |
 | ...must be a serial killer prowling on the intellectuals --- remember eman lacaba et al. Good thing I'm not. I was spared. |
Comment deleted at the request of the author. Comment deleted at the request of the author.  | Could you post all of these in a more formal blog site? It would be good for us, the younger generation, to know about these things. It's easy to forgive these people when you don't know really what happened pre-martial law (history books in school would only tell us generally corruption and suppression of freedom during marcos' time so it's good to know these details). I just stumbled upon this site after trying to search about Analisa Hyegesi who's in the news lately. And I found all your other blogs about Marcos very good reads. Honestly, I am one of those younger ones who used to think it was a long time ago, we could 'forgive' the family if they changed. But after reading your blogs about them, I suddenly understood why my parents hate them until now and why they're upset that this family is back in the Philippines scot free and back in power again. Again, it's really good for the younger ones to know more details. And you write it in an interesting way -- it doesn't make me want to scan and fast forward to the end like I usually do with history articles. :) |
 | gwiz wrote on Apr 12, '11 The Marcoses have worked their way back to power. Imee is now governor, her mom Imelda a congresswoman, and brother Bongbong a senator. =( |
| gwiz wrote on Apr 12, '11 Let us not let this issue die down. Re-post. Link. I just did. |
 | I'm sorry and hope justice will still be served. I understand the pain of losing someone specially this way. God Bless! |
 | ngulat aq s aking nbsa,, i never thought that someone will take tym for this,,, beliv it or not he is my uncle,, kptid sya ng father q, , , mhirap lumantad dhil alam nmn ntin that marcoses still have the power,, they have money bka pti kmi blikan.. katakot! msarap mbuhay,, bhal n si lord s knila.
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|  ngulat aq s aking nbsa,, i never thought that someone will take tym for this,,, beliv it or not he is my uncle,, kptid sya ng father q, , , mhirap lumantad dhil alam nmn ntin that marcoses still have the power,, they have money bka pti kmi blikan.. katakot! msarap mbuhay,, bhal n si lord s knila.
 that's why marcos should never be allowed to be buried at the Libingan ng mga Bayani! yes vengeance is not ours but justice can be served by men of courage to honor Filipinos like your uncle. Mabuhay Rose! |
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