Reject Marcos family efforts to revise history, people urged

MANILA: A militant partylist group on Sunday urged Filipinos to reject determined efforts by the family of the late strongman Ferdinand Marcos to “paint a rosy picture” of his 20-year dictatorship amid allegations of rampant human rights violations as well as the massive plunder of the country’s treasury.

The Akbayan Citizens Party issued a statement as the country observed on Monday the 48th anniversary of the Marcos proclamation on Sept.21, 1972 declaring martial law over the Philippines.

“We must not allow the Marcoses to steal. We must not allow them to rob us of our truth and history,” the statement read, recalling efforts by the dictator’s family and his supporters to revise history of the martial law regime, considered as one of the darkest chapters in Philippine history.

It added: “Marcos was a dictator. It is a fact. The torture and the plunder that were all commited under martial law happened.

“They were all historically documented, recorded and recognized worldwide.”

Earlier this year, Akbayan noted that the only son and namesake of the late dictator, former senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, reiterated his call for a revision of the country’s history in which he claimed his father was the “victim.”

In particular, Bongbong claimed his father continued to be put in a bad light by textbooks that pictured him to be corrupt and responsible for alleged killings and disappearances of opposition leaders.

Worse still, allegations arose from the plunder of the country’s treasury by Marcos and his family with estimates of at least $10 billion during his 20-year dictatorship that was later ousted by the Edsa 1 People Power revolution in February 1986.

At the same time, Akbayan noted that not even President Duterte which it described as a self-confessed admirer of the late strongman and a political ally of his family “can eradicate the Marcos dark legacy.”

In his first year in office as the president, Duterte allowed that the Marcos remains be given a hero’s burial at the government-run “Libingan ng mga Bayani” ( Heroes Cemetery) in suburban Taguig City in Metro Manila.