Among other reasons, the fascist Marcos family cheated their way back to power to launder their bloody and rotten reputation as human rights violators, plunderers and thieves.
Recently, human rights groups and victims of martial law strongly scored the Marcos Jr. regime for its latest attempt to distort the toxic record of the Marcos Sr. fascist dictatorship.
To celebrate Marcos Sr.’s 107th birthday anniversary last Sept 11, a state university in the dictator’s home province conducted a lecture series harping on the myth of a so-called golden age under martial rule, and claims that Marcos Sr. was a visionary [sic] whose views have had a “lasting influence on [the course] of national progress”, quoting the invitation. The series of lectures glorify the late dictator and martial law and targeted the youth and students who are more vulnerable to historical lies. Marcos Jr. also declared his dictator’s father birthday a holiday.
However, during this period too, the Philippine Supreme Court issued a ruling declaring a 57-hectare property in Paoay, Ilocos Norte long held by the Marcoses as ill-gotten. This ruling is significant as it affirms the plunder and thievery of the Marcos family and trashes the attempts to whitewash between what experts estimate to be 5 to 10 billion US dollars they stole from the Filipino people. In a July 2003 ruling of the Supreme Court, $683 million worth of Marcos assets in various Swiss banks were declared as ill-gotten.
Human rights and academic groups have strongly stressed that the fascist Marcos family’s continued attempt to distort history will not rehabilitate their image nor erase the fact that 3,240 were killed by the military and police during martial law, more than 70,000 were arrested arbitrarily without warrants of arrest, while 34,000 were tortured.
Continuing his fascist father’s reign of terror, Marcos Jr.’s human rights record is horrific, with 105 extrajudicial killings, more than 163 cases of abductions by state forces, 44,065 incidents of bombings of communities, and 755 political prisoners, which are just initial figures.
More than 2M Filipinos are unemployed, over 10 percent of the population have migrated abroad because of the absence of jobs in the country. Citing figures from human rights and economist groups, “Filipino families experiencing involuntary hunger increased to 14.2% in March 2024 from 12.6% in December 2023, as 46% of Filipino families rated themselves as poor and 30% borderline poor in March 2024.”
And while “Rome burns”, so to speak, the dictator’s son and family continue to splurge in extravagance squandering the people’s money.
The Campaign Against the Return of the Marcoses and Martial Law – a coalition of martial law victims, has decried the recent lavish celebration of Marcos Jr.’s 67th birthday in a five-star hotel with a 1980s British rock band, Duran Duran, performing live, and reportedly paid between 30M Php and 50M Php (about 900,000 US dollars). This callous birthday celebration was held when Filipinos were still recovering from the recent devastation caused by a typhoon.
The group is asking if Marcos Jr.’s confidential funds were used to pay for this lavish party. The fascist’s son has 4.56B Php (around 80M USD) in confidential and intelligence funds which has not been subject to the scrutiny of Philippine Congress.
CARMMA said: “This is not the first time Ferdinand Marcos Jr. callously embarked on activities for personal leisure in the face of the people’s widespread suffering. In October 2022, he and members of his family spent a weekend in Singapore to watch the Formula One Grand Prix racing event and stayed at a luxury hotel. This, right after Typhoon Karding had slammed the country, leaving a wide swath of destruction. In January 2024, he and his family used the presidential helicopter just to watch Coldplay, another British rock band, perform at the Philippine Arena in Bulacan.”
The group said “disgusting memories of the opulent parties held in Malacañang before the Marcoses’ ouster from power keep coming back with every display of Marcos Jr.’s profligacy.” They added that the Marcoses have continued to refuse to pay their PhP203 billion estate tax, even as the Supreme Court in 1997 denied a plea by Marcos,Jr. to drop the levies as it ruled that the tax assessments had become final and can not be appealed.