‘Voters want better living conditions, not debates on old issues’

URDANETA CITY, Philippines – People want to know whether the leaders they will elect can help them alleviate their living conditions rather than debate about what happened 40 years ago, vice presidential aspirant Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said yesterday.

More pressing concerns like price reduction, drug addiction, employment, eradication of corruption, better infrastructure for faster transport of agricultural produce, and strengthening of the education sector are more important, he told reporters during the district congress of barangay health workers at the Urdaneta City Convention and Sports Center.

“These are what the people need,” he said. “These are what we should respond to.”

President Aquino’s statement during a presidential forum of the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines about alleged atrocities and abuses committed during martial law had affected him, Marcos said.

“Of course (I’m affected),” he said. “I’m the one being referred to (by the President’s tirades).” 

He will apologize for anything wrong that he had done, Marcos said.

“You tell me what I did wrong, and if I hurt somebody, I will apologize to them,” he said.

When one speaks of atrocities, the Philippines has the highest reported killings in the world of media practitioners, Marcos said.

“But why is it that we do not hear about these atrocities anymore?” he said.

‘Loose coalition’

Meanwhile, Marcos confirmed on Tuesday that he is running in a “loose coalition” with presidential aspirant Miriam Defensor-Santiago.

He has been meeting with Santiago and they will be campaigning together to reach out to several places in the country for next year’s polls, he said in an interview with ABS-CBN Bandila edition.

“We have a loose coalition, we will campaign together in part. We must be seen in many places,” he said.

Returning to power is not among the reasons he is seeking higher office next year, Marcos said.

His main concern is the current state of the nation and to bring a better life to the people, he added.

He has nothing to apologize to the people because he never committed any crime or hurt anybody, and that if there were misdeeds during the term of his father, it was not his intention to hurt anyone, Marcos said.

People have forgiven any misdeed of his father, he added.

He and Senate Minority Leader Juan Ponce Enrile have moved on since the 1986 EDSA revolt that ousted his father, Marcos said.

“We have already cleared the air,” he said without elaborating.

The sudden increase of his assets from P600,000, when he was a member of the House of Representatives, to almost half a billion pesos when he filed his statement of assets, liabilities and net worth last year, has been explained, Marcos said.

Most of the assets were properties returned to his family under his name after they had won in court and that have been declared in his SALN, he added.

When he declared P600,000 in his SALN, he  also declared an undetermined amount pending in litigation in courts, Marcos said. – Eva Visperas, Perseus Echeminada