“THEY DIDN’T only hoard shoes,” Daily Telegraph culture editor Martin Chilton wrote. “Former Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos and wife Imelda amassed an art collection, paid for with stolen funds.” Today, 146 masterpieces—including works by Van Gogh, Renoir, Rembrandt, Cezanne, Magritte and Brueghel the Younger—are missing.
Sen. Bongbong Marcos’ declaration of his willingness to bring closure to the issues of his father’s regime (Inquirer, 10/31/12) is long overdue but nonetheless a welcome development.
A few weeks ago, the Catholic bishops proposed to mediate between P-Noy and Renato Corona. P-Noy had just berated Corona in public then, and Juan Ponce Enrile had suggested to them that they attempt to reconcile the President and the Chief Justice. They were all for it. “I am OK with that,” said Sorsogon Bishop Arturo Bastes, “especially this time of Christmas… a time for peace, reconciliation, understanding and respect.”
Bongbong Marcos had an interesting reply to Edwin Lacierda’s barb about his family needing to apologize to the country first before they could even think to bury Ferdinand in the Libingan ng mga Bayani. Why them only? Why not everyone who committed human rights abuses against the people? Why not the Aquinos too? “[Lacierda] plays [...]
Today is the 39th year of the declaration of martial law. It’s a day that ought to have for us the significance of Pearl Harbor for Americans, a day of infamy, a day when someone launched a sneaky attack on this country. It ought to, but it doesn’t. I doubt many of us still remember. [...]
It is simply time, and timely. The Marcos issue is not over, and legal circumstances cannot just be buried, especially if there remain opportunities for country to recover illegally obtained wealth. Legal cases, however, can be pursued more dispassionately, less acrimoniously. The government has recovered some, lost some, and after twenty-five years, no one seems [...]
