Pinoys bearing burden of plundered nation

We, members of the Miriam College community, join our fellow Filipino educators in rejecting all claims that the regime of Ferdinand E. Marcos was a time of peace and economic prosperity. These claims are an integral part of the vice presidential campaign of his son, Ferdinand Romualdez Marcos Jr.

Marcos Jr.’s version of history does not square with our own personal and institutional experiences under the Marcos regime. Maryknoll sisters joined street protests in Manila, documented cases of arrests and torture, and cared for activists during martial law. Maryknoll college students, alumni and faculty were arrested, and witnessed the methodical deployment of brutality by state agents. Martial law did not result in real peace. Instead, it fomented greater social unrest and promoted a culture of violence throughout the country.

We deplore Marcos Jr.’s refusal to apologize for the atrocities perpetrated under his father’s rule. It is an affront to the thousands of Filipinos who were systematically harassed, arrested, tortured and summarily executed by state agents.

We object to the suggestion that the Marcos regime was a time of progress and development. Marcos Jr. and his supporters trumpet early pockets of state achievement, without mentioning that these were bankrolled by ever-increasing amounts of public debt. They conveniently omit the fact that these gains were ultimately unsustainable. Neither do they mention that the Marcos family and its close associates improperly and excessively benefited from presidential issuances that gave it control over key industries. When the Marcos regime ended in 1986, bad governance, corruption and cronyism had run the country into the ground.

To this day, Marcos Jr. refuses to acknowledge and apologize for the abuse of power that allowed him to benefit personally from corruption and cronyism. To this day, he and his family fight government’s attempts to recover their ill-gotten wealth. Meanwhile, every Filipino continues to pay for the regime’s fraudulent and illegitimate debts. We bear the burden of a plundered nation.

We denounce the Marcos campaign’s characterization of the dictatorship of former President Ferdinand Marcos as an era of “discipline.” We reject the suggestion that this kind of “discipline” was, and still is, a necessary step toward obtaining peace and prosperity. True peace and lasting development are secured by people’s participation in governance at all levels—not by the use of state violence to silence voices of dissent. We affirm our commitment to democratic ideals and institutions—institutions that guarantee every citizen’s right to participate in governance, and to demand transparency and accountability from government.

Never again must state power be used to systematically curtail citizens’ freedoms and defeat the people’s will. Never again should we allow the use of state policy to deny fundamental human rights. Never again should we allow the use of state violence through torture and execution. Never again should we allow a Marcos in our government.

—WITH 113 SIGNATORIES (as of March 29, 2016), Miriam College community