Marcoses say they won’t apologize for martial law

BAGUIO CITY, Philippines—The Marcos family lashed out at a government report posted on Nov. 3 on the Philippine Information Agency (PIA) website that said Ilocos Norte Gov. Imee Marcos was open to apologizing to martial law victims.

A PIA official on Tuesday said a government contractual employee, the agency’s website manager and the PIA regional office in the Ilocos are under investigation for posting the report that said Marcos was “also open [to issuing a] public apology to martial law victims.”

“She reiterates that their family is open, and has always been open, in saying sorry to those people who believed they were victimized during [her] father’s regime,” the PIA report said.

Jun Arwin Gudoy, Marcos’ spokesperson, made several calls to the Inquirer to deny that the governor issued these statements.

“She was never asked nor had she volunteered to discuss claims made by the martial law victims. She would not discuss an apology because that would have been an admission that the cases [attributed to her father took place]. The governor has asked us to investigate how this report surfaced. It is not true,” Gudoy said.

He said the governor met her staff on Monday night to discuss the report, titled “Marcoses firm on hero’s burial,” which was lifted and published by an Ilocos Norte weekly on Nov. 6.

Gudoy said their investigation traced the report to a contractual PIA employee, who claimed to have lifted the statements from a local television broadcast. He quoted representatives of the station as saying it did not broadcast such a report.

The PIA source said PIA Director General Jose Pabia is aware of the mistake and has taken steps to correct the website account.