The 2019 election is a battle against “national amnesia,” opposition Senator Risa Hontiveros said Thursday.
Hontiveros particularly noted the entry of former Senator Juan Ponce Enrile and Ilocos Norte Governor Imee Marcos, daughter of late strongman Ferdinand Marcos, into next year’s senatorial derby.
Both, she said, had denied the existence of human rights violations during the Marcos regime.
“This is a battle to defend and save historical truth and the democratic gains of the Edsa People Power revolution from people who have brazenly denied the atrocities committed during Ferdinand Marcos’ bloody martial law. This is a fight against national amnesia,” Hontiveros said in a statement.
She noted how Ms. Marcos, in an interview, supposedly downplayed human rights abuses during her father’s time and dismissed them as “political accusations.”
Enrile, on the other hand, earlier claimed that no one was arrested for their political beliefs during Marcos’ martial law.
“Next year’s election is a battle against forgetting,” Hontiveros pointed out.
“Some of the people who seek to return to power inflicted grave suffering on generations of Filipinos, and that they refuse to even acknowledge their involvement is an insult not only to democracy and freedom, but also to the victims, their families, and to the future of our country,” she also said.
Hontiveros then appealed to the voting public to be “very discerning” and not to allow the elections “to be used to invalidate the people’s struggle against the Marcos dictatorship.”
“We have a duty to history and to our country, to act. In order to protect the truth, and our future, it is our duty to not only remember, but also to ensure that those who plunged our country into the pit of suffering never get to do so again,” Hontiveros said. /kga