Bongbong Marcos wants history textbooks revised; critics raise howl

MANILA – Former senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. said history books must be revised, claiming the decades-old criminal accusations against them were proven to be false.

Marcos’ family and supporters have been criticized for painting a rosy picture of the strongman rule, even as killings, human rights abuses and plunder during that time have been proven in courts. 

“What has been proven wrong is essentially what they continue to contend in the textbooks of our children. Essentially you are teaching the children lies,” Marcos stressed Marcos said in a news forum in Manila on Friday, saying the dismissal of the several forfeiture cases against his family is enough proof that the allegations against them were lies.
“‘Yung kanilang sinasabi na ninakaw namin, na ginawa namin, hindi lahat totoo. Pa’no ko nasasabi ‘yun? ‘Yan ang desisyon ng korte. There was no evidence,” he added.
The government lost at least five ill-gotten wealth cases against the Marcoses in five months last year, including a P200-billion civil forfeiture case that was dismissed only last December.
“I can call anyone a murderer, I can call anyone a thief, but I have to prove it,” Marcos said. “Kung hindi, salita lang ‘yan. That’s just hot air coming out of my mouth. And it turns out even in their case it was only propaganda.”
Marcos said that his family has been calling for the revision of history textbooks for years. He added that the revision task should be given to history professors and not to political appointees.

The Marcoses have been acquitted in several graft and malversation cases and as of 2019, the Sandiganbayan and the Supreme Court have dismissed at least 20 of the 43 civil and forfeiture cases against them.

These include a P1-billion civil case in October last year and a P200-billion civil case in December 2019.

But the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) said these are not proof the Marcoses are innocent.

“The decision of Sandiganbayan to dismiss the cases was solely based on the technicality that the Presidential Commission on Good Government did not use original documents as evidence, contrary to the Best Evidence Rule,” CHR spokesperson Jacqueline Ann de Guia said in a statement.

Another human rights lawyer and one of the authors of Republic Act 10368 Erin Tañada also blasted Marcos’ call to revise history books as a “desperate attempt by the Marcoses to erase the memory of the horrors of martial law and absolve the sins of their father.”

“Nais ng mga Marcos na ibaon na lang sa limot ang mga pag-abusong nangyari noong panahon ng diktadurya kung saan libo-libong Pilipino ang pinatay at pinahirapan at bilyon-bilyong piso mula sa kaban ng bayan ang nakulimbat,” he said. (With ABS-CBN News/PN)