“Never forget, never again.”
This is the resounding call of faculty and academic employees at the University of the Philippines (UP) Diliman regarding the possible return of the Marcos family to Malacañang.
The Congress of Teachers/Educators for Nationalism and Democracy (CONTEND-UP), in a statement issued Wednesday, Oct. 6, joined the broad clamor against the Marcoses.
The progressive organization of teachers and academic employees also vowed to strongly campaign against the spectre of the return of the Marcoses as well as the Dutertes to the Palace.
“We strongly condemn the dastardly attempts of the Marcoses to return to the highest position of the land 35 years after the fall of the much-hated Marcos dictatorship,” said UP History professor Francisco Jayme Paolo Guiang of CONTEND-UP and Tanggol Kasaysayan.
Calls against the return of the Marcoses intensified when former senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. filed his candidacy for the presidency on Oct. 6.
READ:
https://mb.com.ph/2021/10/06/bongbong-marcos-files-coc-for-president/
Guiang said that Martial Law was one of the “darkest years” of the country's history.
“We must never forget how the Marcoses plundered, corrupted, and violently repressed the Filipino people while remaining unrepentant for their crimes up to the present,” he added.
Citing Amnesty International, the group noted that about “70,000 were imprisoned, 35,000 tortured, and 3,200 killed by state forces” from 1972 to 1981 alone.
“Now more than ever, we need to remember and draw lessons from the Marcos dictatorship years amidst the similar reign of state terrorism and repression under Duterte,” said UP Prof. Karlo Mongaya, who teaches Philippine Studies 21, UP's General Education subject on Martial Law.
Mongaya added that the Marcos years saw the “intersection of the worse economic downfall in Philippine history and the most brazen forms” of state terrorism.
“Unfortunately, we see history repeating under Duterte,” he said. “We say never forget, never again to Martial Law,” he added.
Citing IBON Foundation, the group said that the “Philippines was one of the weakest economies in Asia from 1965 to 1986 and the top debtor country in Southeast Asia, with foreign debt spiraling from $460 million in 1965 to $18.8 billion in 1985.”