MANILA, Philippines — Claiming his family is a victim of what he views as historical revisionism, defeated vice presidential candidate Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. called Friday for the revision of school textbooks that paint the clan as “bad” people.
The two-decade rule of his father, ousted dictator Ferdinand Marcos, was marred by plunder of state coffers, human rights abuses, killings, disappearances and media repression, which the Marcoses refuse to acknowledge.
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Marcos claimed the accounts about the abuse and corruption done by his family during the martial law years were part of the propaganda of their political rivals.
“Who is doing revisionism? Nilagay nila sa libro, sa textbook ng mga bata na ang mga Marcos ganito ang ninakaw, ganito ang ginawa,” he said in a press briefing hosted by the National Press Club, members of which were jailed during the martial law years.
(Who is doing revisionism? They put it in textbooks of students that the Marcoses stole this, that they did this.)
He said school textbooks must be revised by history professors and political scientists to fix what he claims as lies being taught to students.
“What we are trying to teach is understanding and an involvement in politics in our young people… Imbes na nangayari ngayon sinasabi, ginagamit lang pampulitika. Tinuturuan sila to hate people,” Marcos said.
He added the recent court decisions dismissing cases against their family on account of “lack of evidence” show that what has been written about them in history books were untrue.
In November 2019, Sandiganbayan affirmed its earlier decision that junked a P1 billion civil-ill gotten wealth cases against the Marcoses and their alleged dummies. In December, the anti-graft court also dismissed the P200 billion civil suit filed by the government against the family.
But the family did not win every corruption case thrown at them.
The Swiss Federal Court in 1990 affirmed a prosecutor’s findings that the Marcoses hid $356 million in Swiss banks during their rule.
The country’s Supreme Court allowed the forfeiture of the family’s Swiss deposits—which had an aggregate amount of over $658 million as of January 2002.
In 2018, Sandiganbayan convicted Imelda Marcos of seven counts of graft related to private organizations created in Switzerland while she was a government official. She was sentenced to up to 11 years for each case but the graft convict was allowed to post bail.
Estimates from the Amnesty International also showed that 70,000 people were imprisoned, 34,000 were tortured and 3,240 were killed during martial law.
NEWSLAB: 31 Years of Amnesia
Myths
Members of the Marcos family and their supporters are also accused of attempting to distort history by exaggerating achievements and portraying the dictator’s rule as the Philippines’ golden age.
Supporters of the family often reiterate the myth that the Philippines was the richest country in Asia during the Marcos years. But the Philippine economy was in a dismal state, worse than it had ever been, in the years leading to the ouster of the Marcos in 1986 through the EDSA People Power Revolution.
Figures from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas showed that when Marcos came into power in 1965, the Philippine peso was valued at P3.91 per dollar. When he was ousted, one dollar was equivalent to P20.46.
Even nutribun, a bread product of the United States Agency for International Development’s mission in the country, was touted as one of Marcos achievements.
In a conversation uploaded on the Facebook page of the former Bongbong last year, former Senate president told the strongman’s son that no one was jailed or arrested for their political beliefs during the martial law years.
In 2016, President Rodrigo Duterte allowed the remains of Marcos to be buried at the Libingan ng mga Bayani.