In the Know: Primitivo Mijares

SINS OF THE FATHER Primitivo Mijares’ tell-all book on the Marcoses led to his disappearance and to the torture and death of his son Boyet. —VIDEO GRAB FROM BATAS MILITAR DOCUMENTARY

A former  trusted aide of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos, journalist Primitivo Mijares authored a tell-all, first-hand account of the excesses and atrocities of the Marcos couple in his book, “The Conjugal Dictatorship of Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos,” published at the height of martial law in 1976.

Despite Marcos’ bribe offer of $100,000, Mijares testified before the United States House subcommittee on international organizations, which heard cases of human rights violations in Korea and the Philippines.

While staying in the US as an exile, Mijares accepted an invitation to return to the Philippines in 1977. He was last seen boarding a flight home with a known Marcos intelligence agent but had never been heard from since. The body of his youngest son, 15-year-old Boyet Mijares, was later found in the mountains of Antipolo with signs of severe torture.  Reports had it that his captors made Mijares watch his son’s agony before he himself was killed.

His childhood years were as harrowing.  Mijares experienced the horrors of the Japanese occupation during World War II when he witnessed his parents being bayoneted to death by Japanese soldiers at their hometown in Santo Tomas, Batangas province.

After the war, Mijares lived with his uncle in Baguio where he became editor of the high school organ and graduated class valedictorian.

Mijares’ journalistic career began in 1950 when he became the youngest editor of Midland Courier, Baguio’s biggest newspaper. A year later,  he covered major beats as a reporter for the defunct Manila Chronicle.

The former Marcos aide finished his bachelor of arts degree as a working student in 1956 and later, his bachelor of laws in 1960, both at Lyceum of the Philippines University.

SOURCES: ‘THE CONJUGAL DICTATORSHIP OF FERDINAND AND IMELDA MARCOS’ BY PRIMITIVO MIJARES, AND INQUIRER ARCHIVES