Martial law victims bare ‘Dear Imee’ open letter

Ilocos Norte Gov. Imee Marcos leads the wreath-laying ceremony at the
golden statue of her father, the late strongman Ferdinand Marcos, in Sarrat town, his birthplace. EV ESPIRITU / INQUIRER NORTHERN LUZON FILE PHOTO

ON THE EVE of the 44th anniversary of the declaration of martial law, the Coalition Against the Marcos Burial at Libingan ng mga Bayani released an open letter addressed to Ilocos Norte Gov. Imee Marcos in response to her earlier speech asking forgiveness for her father, dictator President Ferdinand Marcos.

“Whatever sins my father committed—he was, after all, human who made mistakes—I hope people absolve him. I hope that beyond all these issues, they would find mercy because in forgiving my father, their anger would be sated and they too would find peace,” Marcos’ elder daughter said at the end of a three-day celebration of his 99th birthday in Batac City on Sept. 11.

In an event dubbed “Dear Imee,” martial law victims led by Claimants 1081 and those opposed to the dictator’s burial at Libingan ng mga Bayani read the open letter on the Bantayog ng mga Bayani grounds in Quezon City as they paid tribute to those who died for freedom during the Marcos dictatorship.

The letter noted that like Marcos, the coalition members are also human and capable of forgiving if they see that the Marcoses had sincerely regretted their mistakes.

Stole billions

“For now, we can’t see that since you cannot even admit the mistakes of your father and the entire family,” the open letter read. “You robbed the money of the country and left even the generations that followed in big debt,” it said. It challenged the entire Marcos family to admit stealing billions of pesos from the country’s coffers and to return them.

The letter also scored the Marcoses’ campaign to get 1 million signatures to support the planned burial at Libingan.

“Why are you pushing for his burial there when clearly he is not a hero,” it said. The Marcos family, it added, should just follow the agreement it made with then President Fidel V. Ramos to bury the strongman in his hometown in Batac.

Only when these requests are granted will the group and the entire Filipino people “forgive (the Marcoses),” the letter said.

The members of Claimants 1081 said they were hoping that the governor and her family would grant their requests to prevent the youth “from being victimized by historical distortions about the Marcos era.”