Pro-democracy protesters in the Philippines yesterday marked the anniversary of the 1986 army-backed “people power” revolt with the son of the dictator ousted in that uprising now leading the country.
About 1,400 demonstrators, some waving Philippine flags and holding placards that read: “Never forget,” gathered at a democracy shrine along the main Epifanio de los Santos Avenue in metropolitan Manila.
Leftist activists, carrying an effigy that depicted Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr as a pest, protested separately at a nearby pro-democracy monument.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Faced with the awkward situation of issuing a statement to mark the revolt that toppled his namesake father, Marcos Jr called for reconciliation without citing the event as a democratic milestone, as his predecessors had done.
“I once again offer my hand of reconciliation to those with different political persuasions to come together as one in forging a better society — one that will pursue progress and peace and a better life for all Filipinos,” he wrote in a two-paragraph statement posted on Facebook.
Renato Reyes of the leftist alliance Bagong Alyansang Makabayan said the president’s offer was a “good sound bite, but lacks sincerity and substance” given Marcos Jr’s refusal to acknowledge abuses under his father’s rule.
Photo: Reuters
Millions of Filipinos in February 1986 converged at the highway to shield top military and defense officials who defected from Marcos’ administration. The ailing president, who imposed martial rule from 1972 to 1981, was driven with his family and cronies into US exile.
The uprising became a harbinger of change in authoritarian regimes, but in the nearly four decades since then, poverty, stark inequality between the rich and poor and a failure to address past wrongdoings have remained deeply entrenched, fanning political and social divisions.
The Marcoses returned to the Philippines in 1991 and gradually regained political power.
In May last year, Marcos Jr won the presidential race in a landslide victory in one of history’s most dramatic reversal of fortunes.
“It’s mind-blowing in one sense, isn’t it? How did this happen? You remember those who sacrificed their lives and you feel so sad for those who were tortured, those who lost loved ones,” said Judy Taguiwalo, a longtime former political detainee and torture survivor.
Now 73 and ailing, Taguiwalo said her generation of activists who fought the dictatorship was slowly fading, but she remained defiant.
“There’s a new generation of fighters,” she said. “Tyranny can return, but there’s no forever in tyranny so long as we don’t stop resisting, even if it’s an uphill battle or we get sidetracked by disinformation.”
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