Palace slams Martial Law; cites gains of EDSA revolt

Malacañang on Wednesday debunked speculations that the EDSA People Power Revolution in 1986 was a failure because of the apparent surge in popularity survey ratings of vice-presidential candidate and Sen. Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr.

Presidential spokesperson Edwin Lacierda said there are many attempts to revise history, especially the EDSA 1986 Revolution, but Filipinos should be reminded of the dark days of the Martial Law prior to the bloodless revolution.

“In instances where a generation has lapsed, there’s a strong attempt for revisionism. There has been a strong attempt to revise what happened prior to EDSA Revolution,” Lacierda said.

“In fact, our vice-presidential candidate Leni Robredo has mentioned that people are portraying the Marcos years as the golden years—far from it. This is a period of human rights violations, human rights abuses; our economy went down. At some point, it went down, but towards the end — because of cronyism, rampant cronyism, our economy was in the dumps,” he said.

“Those who underwent the difficult periods of Martial Law cherish those freedoms. After us, those who never experienced human rights violation, those who never experienced the dark days of Martial Law tend to not appreciate the same kind of disappointment over those years. Maybe, perhaps, we need to remind people on a very regular basis,” Lacierda said.

“Now that the election is here, now that Senator Bongbong Marcos is here and the specter of dictatorship is coming back again, we certainly need to speak up against the dictatorship,” he added.

Lacierda reminded the public that the younger Marcos has not made any action or even acknowledged the sins of his father, Ferdinand Marcos, who in 1972 declared Martial Law.

“He has, in fact, glorified the dark days of Martial Law. How do we now say that he is different from the father,” Lacierda said.

Lacierda, meanwhile, lambasted Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile for calling the late former President Corazon Aquino a “dictator.”

Enrile was one of the government officials who helped the people achieve success during the EDSA People Power Revolution in 1986, along with former President Fidel V. Ramos.

“Again, that’s another form of revisionism. You’re changing what happened. This is history being revised to suit some person’s version, a warped version of history,” Lacierda said.

“How can she be the dictator when democracy was opened up, the institu- tions were restored, the three branches were working? And, to top it all, she was not covered by the 1987 Constitution. She could have run again (but) she deemed it proper not to run again. Is that a dictator? She stayed in power for a good six years. The dictatorship lasted for so many years — ’72 until ’86. Now you tell me who’s the dictator,” Lacierda retorted.

The Palace official said that the country is now on track and the people should shun the idea of going back to the dark ages of martial rule.

“Our economy is doing great. We are in the process of making sure that more people are liberated from poverty. Our poverty incidence has gone down… That’s the kind of government that will ensure the poverty alleviation should be consistently making sure that these programs are happening,” Lacierda said.