Nine years after the tragic onslaught of super typhoon Yolanda, President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. has questioned the number of people that perished during its onslaught, saying it is not just more than 6,000.
"I have questioned it from day one. 6,000 plus ang sabi nila (They say it's 6,000 plus). It’s not 6,000 plus," Marcos said in a media interview when asked if he was questioning the number of fatalities reported from the super typhoon.
In his speech during the 9th year commemoration of the deadly typhoon, Marcos stated that "there are still thousands out there", referring to the unaccounted fatalities.
"If you remember during the count of the casualties, the count was stopped. And we knew that there were still thousands out there," he said.
However, the President believes it is "too late" to determine the real number of deaths.
"Well, it’s too late. It’s too late," he said when asked what the government must do with the unaccounted deaths.
In his remarks, the chief executive enjoined the nation to also remember those who perished but were never accounted for.
"And for those thousands, those countless thousands, we come here, we commemorate. Because if we no longer commemorate, their memory dies. And it is only up to us to keep that memory alive," he said.