“The issue of rights abuses and your family’s
ill-gotten wealth are very much relevant in 2016, and beyond Mr. Marcos,”
Karapatan secretary general Cristina Palabay told vice presidential candidate
Bongbong Marcos.
“The issue of rights abuses and your family’s
ill-gotten wealth are very much relevant in 2016, and beyond Mr. Marcos,”
Karapatan secretary general Cristina Palabay told vice presidential candidate
Bongbong Marcos.
“The human rights violations during your
father’s dictatorship are still happening today. The late Ferdinand Marcos,
with the support of the United States government, had propped up the machinery
that perpetuates human rights violations that is still in place today and is
used by all the post-Marcos regimes against the Filipino people,” Palabay said.
But rights abuses and corruption, Karapatan
believes, are as relevant and as real as they were during martial law. Palabay
said Marcos and Aquino are essentially two sides of the same coin. Aquino,
despite his anti-Marcos stance, has actually done nothing to repudiate martial
law but has instead built his regime on it—the brutality of the AFP and the
paramilitary groups, the repressive laws, the pork barrel system, the political
dynasties, the puppetry to US through the Enhanced Defence Cooperation
Agreement (EDCA). All these have
emboldened the Marcoses to take further steps nearer to Malacanang.
“The victims of rights violations during
martial law have yet to achieve justice and compensation,” Palabay added. “Many
lives were ruined during the martial law. Many families were separated. Even
today, their children and grandchildren still suffer the effects of martial
law,” Palabay said.
“The Marcoses took billions of dollars from the
nation’s coffers. The huge amount of money could have fed families, sent
children to schools, and even establish basic industries to develop our own
economy,” Palabay said. “Ang mga
kasalukuyang isyu ng mamamayan na sinasabi ni Sen. Marcos ay dahil sa
sinimulang sistematikong korapsyon at hindi makataong polisiya ng kanyang ama,”
(The people’s issues which Sen. Marcos mentioned stemmed from the systematic
corruption and anti-people policies that his father started),” Palabay said.
In a bid to ward off the people’s campaign
against the return of the Marcoses in Malacanang, vice presidential aspirant
Sen. Bongbong Marcos claimed the martial law period and his family’s ill-gotten
wealth are no longer relevant to the voters today. ###