DAVAO CITY , Philippines — Human rights group Karapatan lambasted Ilocos Norte Governor Imee Marcos’ remark that millennials have moved on with the issues hounding her family, saying that it millennials protested against the burial of her father—the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos.
“With the hashtag #NeverAgain, the younger generation from all over the country registered their protest against the political rehabilitation of the Marcoses and the burial of the dictator Ferdinand Marcos at the Heroes’ Cemetery,” Karapatan Secretary General Cristina Palabay said in a statement on Thursday.
Palabay reminded the late dictator Ferdinand’s eldest child that it was the younger people who protested at the streets to call for both accountability and justice on September 21 last year.
Karapatan’s statement came when Imee made such remark in a press conference on August 21 as the country commemorated the death of late Senator Ninoy Aquino Jr.
“The millennials have moved on, and I think people at my age should also move on as well,” she said. “The conflict between the Marcoses and Aquinos happened a long time ago. We don’t need to keep hating people for a very long time. It’s not our way. We just need to go forward.”
For Karapatan, Imee’s remark only showed that her family “are thick-skinned, riding on the popularity of a vile and murderous President to creep back into power.”
“Contrary to the Marcoses’ delusions that people have not moved on regarding their narratives on the Marcos dictatorship, martial law victims and their relatives have moved forward in their quest for justice,” Karapatan claimed.
The kin of Martial law victims, according to Karapatan, filed and won a landmark case which reaffirmed accountability for gross human rights violations of the Marcos’ despotic regime.
“They worked for a passage of a law recognizing the atrocities of the Marcos’s martial law and enabled compensation for the victims,” the group added.
The human rights group also reported that the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos had plundered wealth worth $10 billion. The late strongman, according to Karapatan, implemented Martial law which killed the lives of 3, 000, tortured 34, 000 and imprisoned 70, 000 individuals.
“The accounts of torture and killings are harrowing, indicative of a regime with no regard for human rights,” the group said.
Karapatan said the Marcoses would be “forever memorialized as a cabal of murderers, torturers and plunderers. They’re the ones who can never move on.”(davaotoday.com)
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