Anti-Bongbong Marcos group vows to press fight

Multi-awarded writer-director Bonnie Ilagan (center) with victims during the presidency of former president Ferdinand Marcos and human rights advocates launch Campaign Against the Return of the Marcoses to Malacanang (CARMMA) during a press conference at the Quezon City Sports Club.
INQUIRER PHOTO/RAFFY LERMA

A group of martial law victims yesterday vowed to stop Sen.  Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. from becoming the second most powerful man in the country.

The Campaign Against the Return of the Marcoses to Malacañang (Carmma) said it would remain relentless in its efforts to ensure that the son and namesake of the dictator would not become vice president.

In fact, the group would continue its pursuit of “justice, truth and accountability” whether Marcos wins or loses the vice presidency in the May 9 elections.

“Carmma will not stop after May 9,” said Carmma convenor Bonifacio Ilagan in a statement, noting that the senator was front-runner in recent voter preference surveys.

Launched in February, Carmma has been hounding the campaign sorties of Marcos with protest actions, most recently in General Santos City, Bacolod City, Iloilo and Baguio.

“The people’s movement for genuine democracy and freedom, from which Carmma sprang, survived martial law and Marcos Sr.; it will survive and overcome a Marcos Jr.,” Ilagan stressed.

Ilagan said that anti-Marcos groups should “not be disheartened” but remain steadfast in their campaign “until [the Marcoses] are finally consigned to the dustbin of history.”

In the most recent Pulse Asia survey commissioned by ABS-CBN TV Network, Marcos led the vice presidential race with 27 percent. He was followed by Sen. Francis Escudero and Camarines Sur Rep. Leni Robredo, who were statistically tied in second place with 23 percent and 21 percent, respectively.

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