Leni tells youth: Marcos years were ugly times

LIBERAL Party (LP) vice presidential candidate Leni Robredo has a message for “millennials” who believe the martial law years were the country’s golden age: It was an ugly time.

“Everything the country experienced back then truly happened. It was not a myth, it was not just a fabrication,” Robredo said on the sidelines of the 30th anniversary celebration of the Edsa revolution at the People Power Monument on Thursday.

Robredo said she was saddened by postings on Facebook and Twitter, especially by young people, characterizing the Marcos dictatorship from 1972 to 1986 as the best years of the Philippines.

“When I go on social media, I see a lot of comments that are not true,” said the Camarines Sur representative and widow of Interior Secretary Jesse Robredo.

“Many mistakenly believe that what we went through more than 30 years ago were the best years in our history.”

Robredo has called out her rival for the vice presidency, Sen. Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., for his revisionist statements about his father’s regime.

Filipinos, she said, should be truthful about what really happened during those years that were marked by abuses against political dissenters, thousands of whom were detained, tortured and killed.

“If there were mistakes, we need to accept them so they do not happen again,” she said.

Marcos, son and namesake of the dictator, has repeatedly said he has nothing to apologize for and the country would have progressed had his father not been deposed.

Robredo said that acknowledging the dark past would lead to a change in society.

The congresswoman, who was eight years old when martial law was declared in 1972, said she had her “political awakening” during the years of the dictatorship, especially after Ninoy Aquino’s assassination.

“After Ninoy died, I became very active [in protests] at the University of the Philippines,” she said. Later she took up law and worked as a human rights lawyer. With a report from Christine O. Avendaño