Karapatan: Bongbong’s announcement to run in 2022 tramples upon history, human rights victims of Marcos dictatorship

While human rights alliance Karapatan welcomed the Supreme Court’s dismissal of Bongbong Marcos’s electoral protest as a “much-delayed decision and affirmation of Marcos’s defeat” in the 2016 elections, the group nonetheless slammed his announcement that he would run for office in 2022 “ for it brazenly tramples upon the lives and the suffering of the thousands of victims human rights violations under his father’s fascist dictatorship.”

While human rights alliance Karapatan welcomed the Supreme Court’s dismissal of Bongbong Marcos’s electoral protest as a “much-delayed decision and affirmation of Marcos’s defeat” in the 2016 elections, the group nonetheless slammed his announcement that he would run for office in 2022 “ for it brazenly tramples upon the lives and the suffering of the thousands of victims human rights violations under his father’s fascist dictatorship.”

Cristina Palabay, Karapatan’s secretary general, warned that such announcement “only means that the Marcos camp is once again gearing up to unleash its propaganda machinery of lies and historical revisionism to prop up Bongbong’s electoral campaign in 2022 and facilitate the rehabilitation of the Marcoses and their desperate bid to return to power — which made significant inroads with the Duterte regime’s alliance with the Marcoses.”

“Marcos is a sore loser who cannot accept defeat even if it stares him in the face, but this kapal ng mukha attitude must not come as a surprise from a family that has been ousted from power but are still shamelessly crawling back to Malacañang. His defeat is not the end, and with the 2022 elections fast approaching, the Marcoses would definitely try again for a comeback  — with their barefaced lies in full tow to whitewash their father’s murderous tyranny and their family’s legacy. We must not let this happen,” Palabay stated.

The Marcoses would “aim to discredit the narratives of the victims of their family’s tyranny — especially those who dared to resist and fight back during the dark days of martial rule,” the Karapatan officer said, but she asserted that the victims are recognized under law with the enactment of the Human Rights Victims Reparations and Recognition Act which “[recognizes] the heroism and sacrifices of all Filipinos who were victims of summary execution, torture, enforced or involuntary disappearance and other gross human rights violations committed during the regime of former President Ferdinand E. Marcos.”

“At a time when another fascist dictatorship is unfolding before us, the Duterte regime’s blatant disregard and contempt for human rights, civil liberties, and democratic rule should remind us of the crimes and atrocities of the Marcoses against the Filipino people. They would try to twist and erase history to make us forget, but they would not succeed if we resist their efforts to glorify fascism. We call on all Filipinos to stand in vigilance and resistance. We say never again to the Marcoses and another fascist dictatorship,” she ended.