Victims: Martial law abuses are not ‘political allegations’

Ilocos Norte Gov. Imee Marcos cannot play down rights abuses during the Marcos dictatorship as "political accusations," a coalition of victims of those abuses said yesterday.

Gov. Marcos, who is running for senator in the 2019 elections, said Tuesday that the instances of human rights abuses— acknowledged by the government and validated by the Human Rights Victims Claims Board— "are political accusations that have not been proven in court."

She also said she feels the country is ready to hear her family's "side of the story."

In August, Marcos claimed that millennials—a marketing loosely used to refer to the youth—have moved on from the issues surrounding martial law, "and, I think, people at my age should move on as well."

Campaign Against the Return of the Marcoses to Malacañang (CARMMA), which is composed of "martial law victims, civil libertarians, peace and freedom advocates and militant groups," called Marcos' statement a demonstration of "unbridled arrogance" reminiscent of the late dictator.

"CARMMA would like to remind the late dictator's daughter that in 1992, the US Federal District Court in Hawaii ruled that the dictator Ferdinand Marcos committed gross human rights violations against 9,539 Filipinos and ordered his estate to provide indemnification," the group said.

The Court of Appeals ruled in January that the ruling cannot be enforced in the Philippines because of the US court's lack of jurisdiction.

"Her insidious claim that human rights violations committed by the dictator Marcos are merely allegations and have not been proven in court is clearly one more effort by the Marcos family to whitewash history and wash away their sins against the Filipino people," CARMMA also said.

Lawyer Jose Manuel "Chel" Diokno, who is running for senator and was at the Commission on Elections at the same time that Marcos was, said that human rights violations during the Marcos dictatorship are fully documented, not just by Philippine agencies.

Diokno, whose father Sen. Jose "Pepe" Diokno was arrested and held for two years without a formal charge, also said the Bantayog ng mga Bayani and the HRVCB are testaments to the abuses at the time.

The Marcoses have been working to cast doubt on documented history of the administration of their patriarch, whose remains were buried at the Libingan ng mga Bayani in November 2016.

The Marcos burial had been one of President Rodrigo Duterte's campaign promises. He said the ousted dictator deserved to be buried there as a former president.