"Never again."
Opposition legislators remember the Martial Law regime as the ‘darkest years’ in the country’s history amid criticism versus alleged acts of historical revisionism.
Albay 1st District Rep. Edcel Lagman and Gabriela Party-list Rep. Arlene Brosas led the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the declaration of Martial Law at the House of Representatives on Wednesday, Sept. 21. Rep. Lagman called out President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. for denying his father’s role in the Philippines’ “darkest years.”
Noting that Germany and Spain both acknowledged and rectified the sins of the regimes of Adolf Hitler and Francisco Franco, respectively, Lagman expressed dismay that the “main beneficiaries of Martial Law are determined to whitewash these blood-stained and repugnant years.”
He called out the Chief Executive and namesake of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos Sr. for denying that his father was a dictator during a pre-recorded interview this September simply because Marcos Sr. was holding “consultations” regularly in Malacañang.
“Mr. Speaker, when an authoritarian leader with vast powers consults with favored sectors, these stakeholders will merely concur with the despot’s self-serving desires or decisions. In the context of the Marcos martial law when dissent was conveniently stifled, consultation inevitably was a farce,” he said during a privilege speech.
While Lagman “conceded” that Marcos Jr. has the right to his own opinion and “filial defense is understandable,” the veteran lawmaker argued that the President “does not have a right to his own reality.”
“Filial defense is understandable but history does not lie in documenting the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos, Sr. during his martial law regime. His son’s denials do not and cannot change the horrors of the past. It cannot repeal statutes and overturn Supreme Court decisions indubitably documenting the atrocities and banalities of the Marcos dictatorship,” he declared.
“For as long as President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. persists in denying the undeniable dictatorship of his father, then Marcos, Jr. will forever be known as the ‘Son of the Dictator Marcos’,” Lagman added.
The lawmaker’s family was a victim of the Martial Law regime since his brother, Hermon Lagman, was the first lawyer to disappear during Martial Law in May 1977 and has remained missing for the past 45 years.
“The memory of both the horrors of martial law and the courage and conviction of its victims and survivors must be indelible in our history. We must resist all attempts of historical revisionism and self-serving sanitizing in literature and the arts, including cinematography,” he said.
He lamented the twisting of facts and the outright lies that troll farms “cultivated” and that have benefited the “enablers” of Martial Law.
The slogan “Never Again”—used by Martial Law critics and victims—is not a battle cry for the Philippines alone since it was first used against the horrors of the Holocaust and later on, genocide and tyranny in Europe, he added.
“But ‘Never Again’ is more than a battle cry. It should be a moral code that we must live by. Never again must we allow ourselves to be victimized. Never again must our human rights be trampled upon. Never again must our nation be shrouded in fear and oppression. Never again should a brother so dearly loved lose his life so that we may live to enjoy basic freedoms,” Lagman said.
It is a “prayer and a promise” to never forget the tragedies of the regime and to “not forget the perpetrators and beneficiaries of martial law until they admit their odious crimes and show contrite repentance.”
Meanwhile, Brosas stressed that fighting for democracy and freedom must continue as she remembered the women and fellow Filipinos that fought the dictatorship.
“Hindi natin malilimot ang libu-libong pinaslang at kinulong sa ilalim ng diktadurang Marcos. Tuloy ang paniningil. Tuloy ang pagsigaw ng katarungan (We will never forget the thousands killed and incarcerated under the Marcos dictatorship. Collecting the debts will continune. Fighting for justice will continue,” she said in a short manifestation in support of Lagman’s speech.
Amnesty International reported that there were 107,240 primary victims of human rights violations during the regime, while 70,000 were arbitrarily arrested, 34,000 people tortured, 3,240 people killed by the military and police, and 464 media outlets closed.
The dictatorship, also the darkest period in Philippine press history, also plunged the country into debt as an estimated $5 to $10 billion were plundered during the Marcos presidency and dictatorship spanning more than two decades, according to Supreme Court jurisprudence.