Fri, May 13, 2022 page9

• Torture survivors from Marcos era unsettled after son’s election in the Philippines

  Survivors of the 20-year regime of Ferdinand Marcos Sr, which ended in 1986, fear that young voters have forgotten their country’s terrifying past — the imprisonments, abuse and killings

  • By Rebecca Ratcliffe / The Guardian, Manila
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  Survivors of the brutal regime of the late Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos have described his son’s apparent landslide presidential election victory as the product of trickery and disinformation, warning that it is unlikely the billions stolen by his family can now be recovered, and that human rights are likely to weaken.

  Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr had won more than 30.8 million votes in a highly divisive presidential election by Monday, an unofficial count showed. His vote tally is more than double that of his closest challenger, the human rights lawyer and current vice president, Leni Robredo, who had campaigned based on transparency and good governance.

  Marcos has said he would bridge political divides in his country, urging people: “Judge me not by my ancestors, but by my actions.”

  His message has not convinced survivors who were tortured or imprisoned, or whose relatives were killed, during his father’s 20-year rule. Nor is it likely to win over critics who want the family to return the vast sums it took from state coffers. As much as US$10 billion was plundered.

  The Marcos family and its supporters have attempted to rebrand the rule of Marcos Sr as a golden era of peace and prosperity. Social media has been flooded with false claims relating to the family and its opponents, prompting media and academics to begin fact-checking initiatives.

  Bonifacio Ilagan, convener of Campaign Against the Return of the Marcoses and Martial Law, said Marcos Jr’s calls for unity are “empty and self-serving, for as long as he does not address the basic questions concerning his father’s dictatorship, of which he was very much a part.”

  Ilagan was tortured and imprisoned as a student, and his sister was disappeared.

  “I for one — and I think I can represent a lot — will never accept a president who continues to be the chief administrator of an estate that embodies plunder,” Ilagan said.

  On Tuesday in Manila, crowds, many wearing black, gathered in front of the Commission on Elections office to protest the return of the Marcos family, alleging cheating and questioning why results had appeared so quickly.

  Election officials have rejected claims of rigging and said results were processed more quickly than in previous years because equipment had been upgraded.

  The results were in line with the findings of opinion surveys conducted by pollsters in the run-up to the election. Either way, activists said, Marcos did not conduct his campaign fairly.

  “He flooded social media with historical distortions and refused to engage the media to answer the painful questions that we wanted him to address,” said Ilagan, who said the campaign was based on “trickery and historical distortions.”

  Although Marcos Jr has denied the existence of any organized online campaign, he was the overwhelming beneficiary of false claims circulating on social media.

  The majority of disinformation was either designed to undermine Robredo’s reputation or enhance the images of the Marcos family, according to analysis by the factchecking coalition Tsek.ph, which monitored disinformation in the run-up to the election.

  Marcos and his running mate, Sara Duterte, daughter of incumbent President Rodrigo Duterte, “represent the worst brand of traditional politics and governance in our nation’s history,” said Cristina Palabay, secretary-general of Karapatan, a human rights group.

  “Under Duterte, the human rights crisis has spiraled with extrajudicial killings, arrests and detention, forcible evacuation and other human rights violations, including violations on press freedom and freedom of association,” Palabay said in a statement.

  Marcos has said he would not allow prosecutors of the international criminal court to visit the Philippines to investigate Duterte’s “war on drugs,” shielding him from prosecution. Survivors of the Marcos regime fear public understanding of the period, already distorted by online misinformation, will be further damaged.

  “Although there are efforts now to try to put the correct version in the textbooks of the children, I don’t think that’s going to be continued,” said Doris Nuval, who was imprisoned for nearly five years under Marcos, the longest of any female political prisoner at the time.

  “It’s just a sad fact that the young Filipinos will never learn of what’s happened until after his term,” she added.

  “[Marcos Jr] has absolutely no concept of human rights,” Nuval said. “I think the human rights community is going to [experience] the worst for it,” she said of a Marcos presidency.
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