Today in Labor History June 1, 1981: Two Filipino longshore labor organizers, Domingo & Viernes, were assassinated in Seattle, Washington on orders of U.S.-backed dictator Ferdinand Marcos. In 1986, as a result of ongoing protests, President Ronald Reagan told Marcos to “cut and cut cleanly.” That evening, Marcos and his wife Imelda fled to Hawaii aboard a U.S. air force plane, after 20 years of rule, with an entourage of 90 people (mostly servants), with 22 crates of cash valued at $717 million, 300 crates of jewelry of unknown value, $4 million worth of unset precious gems, $200,000 in gold bullion, $1 million in Philippine pesos and deposit slips for $124 million in banks in the Cayman Islands. Plus, countless crates of shoes. The Marcos hold the Guinness record for the largest ever theft from a government. Today, their son, Bong Bong Marcos, rules over the Philippines, with Sara Duterte as his vice-president, daughter of the brutal previous president, Rodrigo Duterte, who has been linked to the death-squad murders of over 1,400 alleged drug dealers and street children.
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