Martial law victim: Guilty verdict foils efforts of Marcoses to revise history

FINAL TRIBUTE. Military officers and the Marcos family give a final tribute to Ferdinand Marcos at Libingan ng mga Bayani. PHILIPPINE ARMY

Former Commission on Human Rights (CHR) chair and martial law victim Etta Rosales said Monday that Imelda Marcos’ graft conviction could no longer afford her family to claim that no corruption happened during the dictatorial reign of Ferdinand E. Marcos.

In a phone interview with INQUIRER.net, Rosales hailed the decision of the Sandiganbayan Fifth Division, saying that she was “jumping up and down in joy” when she learned that Mrs. Marcos was found guilty beyond reasonable doubt in seven of 10 cases of graft over the Swiss accounts.

“Of course, tuwang-tuwa ako, I was really very, very happy. I was telling people I was jumping up and down in joy. Because this is the first time in the history of the Philippines that we have a very strong conviction with hard evidence,” she pointed out.

“This one, it was really very good, hard evidence, seven counts out of (10), ang galling-galing,” she added.

She noted that with the graft conviction of Mrs. Marcos, the effort of the Marcoses to “revise history can no longer hold water.”

“For the first time you have hard evidence, conviction and that means today no longer can the Marcoses say ‘nothing happened, there’s never been a conviction’ and their effort to revise history can no longer hold water,” said Rosales, who was tortured and detained during the Marcos dictatorial rule.

“Because you’ve got hard evidence in this case that evidence to the truth, there was plunder and, there was lot of theft actually corruption that took place during the time of Marcos,” she added.

Rosales also said that what was “beautiful” about the ruling of the Sandigaybayan was that “the rule of law and due process prevailed.”

“It only shows that there are good men and women inside the government. We salute them, we salute the Sandigaynbayan…Kasi for the first time, the question of impunity was addressed frontally by this decision,” she noted.

“(Ferdinand) Marcos can get away with impunity he never felt accountable to the constitutional laws and he got away with murder… What is beautiful about the decision of the Sandiganbayan is from a legal standpoint, they made sure that government was working and that no one was above the law, so they pushed the mandate of government which is to ensure that everybody is within the context of the law, everybody was abide by the law, everybody must be accountable,” she added.

Last November 9, the Sandiganbayan Fifth Division found Mrs. Marcos, now an Ilocos Norte representative, guilty of graft, a bailable charge, for channeling funds to Swiss foundations set up by the Marcos couple as she held government positions during the regime of her husband.

The anti-graft court sentenced Mrs. Marcos to imprisonment of six years and one month up to 11 years for each count, as provided under the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act. She was also perpetually barred from holding any public office and ordered arrested.

READ: Imelda Marcos guilty of graft, ordered arrested

The camp of Mrs. Marcos is expected to appeal the conviction soon.

Mrs. Marcos is seeking to become the governor of Ilocos Norte in the 2019 elections, as her daughter Imee, the incumbent Ilocos Norte governor, joins the senatorial race next year.  /kga