BY WENDELL VIGILIA and RAYMOND AFRICA
DEPUTY speaker Lito Atienza, who is running for vice president in next year’s elections, yesterday dared all presidential aspirants to declare if they are for or against the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos and his martial law regime, saying it is a huge election issue.
“You state your piece and your own personal knowledge and let people decide come election time,” Atienza, the running mate of presidential bet Sen. Manny Pacquiao, told a television interview.
The son of the dictator, former senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., is among those eyeing the presidency. The others aside from Pacquiao are Vice President Leni Robredo, Senators Panfilo Lacson and Ronald dela Rosa, and Manila Mayor Francisco “Isko Moreno” Domagoso.
Robredo’s stand against the Marcoses has long been public knowledge. Moreno, in part rebuke of the Vice President, has said Filipinos have to “move forward.” Pacquiao has said the Marcos family should return their ill-gotten wealth and publicly apologize for the abuses and atrocities of the Marcos administration under martial rule.
Dela Rosa, standard bearer of one of two factions in the administration party PDP-Laban, yesterday appealed to the public to also present the good things the late President Marcos did for the country and not paint him as the worst president of the Philippines due to the ill-gotten wealth issue.
He said talking about the good Marcos has done is not revising history but merely “setting the facts straight…”
He also said Bongbong should acknowledge the wrong the late president did to the people but not to the point of apologizing for them.
He said the fact the Marcoses are acknowledging that they acquired ill-gotten wealth is “fair enough.”
“Pero kung mag-sorry, to apologize for the mistakes of his dad, kawawa naman (But to say sorry, to apologize for the mistakes of his dad is unfair),” Dela Rosa said.
He, however, said that if his own father has committed wrong, he would personally apologize to the people who have been affected.
Atienza, a staunch Marcos critic, said candidates should not hide their stand on the issue because “you either like Marcos, or you don’t.”
He said the presidential bets should say that martial law did the country good or that it “jeopardized and destroyed the economy of the country because of massive corruption.”
Robredo, the opposition’s presidential bet, has said one of the reasons she decided to join the race was Moreno’s stand on the Marcos issue.
Moreno, the presidential bet of Aksyon Demokratiko who like Pacquiao is former ally of President Duterte, has said he admires the dictator for his achievements but is among those denouncing human rights violations under the Marcos rule.
Atienza, an activist during the Marcos dictatorship, scoffed at the attempts of the former president to revise history, saying his son should at the very least recognize the fact that martial law hurt the country.
He said young people easily “get carried away” by pro-Marcos propaganda and it is incumbent upon people like him to tell them what really happened during those years.
“I am just asking him to recognize that martial law, and his father Ferdinand Edralin Marcos, did not do well, did not really benefit the Filipinos. Maraming atrocities na nangyari (A lot of atrocities happened),” Atienza said. “He can easily say, ‘I did not participate in those tortures and if I become President, I will never commit the same.’”
Atienza said the younger Marcos cannot feign innocence because “you were already a mature young man when you all fled the Philippines on Feb. 26, 1986.”
“(It was) when you rode the American helicopter to escape from the raging, oncoming, rushing crowd of Filipinos wanting justice from you,” he said.
He slammed the claim of the dictator’s daughter, Sen. Imee Marcos, that martial law happened “one million years ago,” saying it’s “a very recent history and you are doing everything using your money, to distort history.”
SALN
Dela Rosa said all government officials should make public their respective statement of assets, liabilities, and net worth (SALN) in the spirit of transparency,
Asked what he thinks of President Duterte who does not want to make public his own SALN, Dela Rosa said the Chief Executive must not be faulted since the Ombudsman recently issued Memorandum Circular No. 1 Series of 2020 which amended the guidelines on public access to SALNs filed in the agency.
Last August, Robredo asked Duterte to make public his SALN to prove that he is serious in fighting corruption in government, instead of saying that he will audit all government agencies if he becomes vice president.
Dela Rosa also said he will protect Duterte and himself from the International Criminal Court if he wins as president.
Duterte and Dela Rosa are among the government officials named by the ICC as being part of an apparent policy to perpetrate extrajudicial killings in relation to the administration’s war on drugs and the ones executed by the so-called Davao death squad when Duterte was mayor of Davao City.
He said the ICC investigators will be welcomed in the country but he cannot allow them to conduct investigations on the allegations against them since it will be a “slap to our judicial system” which is working.
‘NO CRACKS’
The chairman of Aksyon Demokratiko, Ernest Ramel, said there are no “cracks” in the party even after the resignation of former solicitor general Florin Hilbay as member, to support Robredo’s candidacy instead of Moreno’s.
Ramel said the party lost “one good member” in Hilbay but still gained three senatorial candidates — Carl Balita, Samira Gutoc and lawyer Joseph Peter “Jopet” Sison — and more than 4, 000 local candidates.
“I wouldn’t say there’s any crack, natural lang naman yun that people will come and go,” Ramel told ABS-CBN’s Teleradyo.
Last week, former vice president Noli de Castro withdrew his senatorial candidacy under Moreno’s team, and Moreno’s chief of staff also quit to join a radio network.
“From 2019, we had only more than 100 candidates, including former Solicitor General Hilbay. Now we have more than 4,000 candidates nationwide,” Ramel said.
Meanwhile, the Alliance of Labor Leaders for Leni (ALL4LENI) asked Robredo to to include Nagkaisa Labor Coalition (Nagkaisa) chairman Sonny Matula “as the representation of workers in her senatorial slate.”
“Ka Sonny is known as a champion of the labor agenda and has strong stand against dictatorship and authoritarianism in the country. On the basis of democracy, having worker representation is adequate reason,” it said.
The 12th slot is the slate has yet to be filled up.
Matula also ran for senator in 2019 but placed 50th out of the 62 senatorial aspirants.
Among members of ALL4LENI are Federation of Free Workers, Nagkaisa, Partido ng Manggagawa, Public Services Labor Independent Confederation, Sentro ng mga Nagkakaisa at Progresibong Manggagawa, and Unified of Filipino Service Workers.
PRIESTS
Three Catholic priests are joining the 2022 elections.
Data gathered by the Church-run Radio Veritas showed that Fr. Granwell Pitapit of the Diocese of Libmanan Pitapit is running for mayor of Libmanan, Camarines Sur; Fr. Emerson Luego of the Diocese of Tagum as mayor of Mabini, Davao De Oro; and Fr. Emmanuel Alparce of the Diocese of Sorsogon, as councilor of Bacacay, Albay.
Novaliches Bishop Emeritus Teodoro Bacani advised the three priests to be prepared for the new field they are looking to go into.
“Being a good priest is not enough to fulfill the mission given to you by the voting public,” he said.
Under the Canon Law, “clerics are forbidden to assume public offices, which entail a participation in the exercise of civil power.”
“Us priests may get involved in politics but we shouldn’t be engaged in politicking. We may get involved as priests, but not as politicians,” said the bishop.
“We are not meant to hold power in government but guide the people on how to choose their rightful leaders,” added Bacani. — With Ashzel Hachero and Gerard Naval
