The Philippine government had to defend itself.
That's the gist of Partido Federal ng Pilipinas (PFP) standard-bearer Bongbong Marcos's explanation to young voters of the Marcos-era martial law that lasted from 1972 to 1981.
UniTeam bet Marcos was the guest during the Tuesday, April 26 episode of CNN Philippines' The Presidential Candidates: In Private interview series.
Host Ruth Cabal asked the survey-leading Marcos: "A lot of our voters now are more than 50 percent youth...millennials, Gen Z. How about the issue of martial law, how would you explain it to them?"
The former senator initially gave a practical response to the question, saying, "I think the best people who can explain it to them are their relatives who went through it."
"And we have explained it, we've been explaining it for 40 years already," he added.
Shortly after, Marcos would give his actual answer to query.
"I explain it by saying that the situation at that time was dire. We were fighting a war on two fronts: we had a secessionist movement in the south, we have the dissident CPP-NPAs (Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army) in the countryside. And these were people who wanted to bring down the government, and the government wanted to defend itself.
"So that was my understand...that's always been my understanding of it and I think it is...because if you look at historical record, totoo naman (it's true). Ganyan naman talaga ang nangyari (that's what really happened)," Marcos said.
His father, the late strongman President Ferdinand Marcos, signed Proclamation No. 1081 on Sept. 21, 1972, proclaiming a state of martial law in the Philippines.
Military rule would remain in the country, at least technically, Jan. 17, 1981, when President Marcos lifted martial law via Proclamation No. 2045 in preparation for the visit of Pope John Paul II the following month.
Various disappearances and abuses reportedly took place during this nationwide martial law period.