"It is not enough to change the person in the presidential palace. ![]() "There's a lot of reflection going on right now," she said. Taguiwalo believes impunity following the revolution and the failures of successive post-Marcos governments to improve Filipinos' lives provided fertile ground for a rewriting of history. "They were welcomed back as if nothing has happened," said Judy Taguiwalo, another anti-Marcos activist who was twice arrested and tortured. Nearly 40 years after the Philippines began hunting for billions of dollars plundered during former dictator Ferdinand Marcos's regime, much of the loot is still missing and no one in the family has been jailed ROMEO GACAD AFP/File Today, Imelda is on bail for a 2018 conviction over embezzled funds and lives freely in Manila, her husband's remains have been moved to the national heroes' cemetery, and several family members hold political office. There were no Argentine-style junta trials for rights abuses or even a South African-style Truth and Reconciliation Commission.Įfforts to recover plundered state assets are incomplete, leaving the family a vast war chest to restore their networks of patronage. "The (polling) figures say he's going to be president, but I cannot for the life of me grasp how real that could be."īut in some ways, he and other victims admit, the Marcos revival is explainable.Īfter the regime was ousted, trials for tax fraud and corruption dragged on for decades. "The son of the dictator becoming president, 50 years after Marcos senior declared martial law, it is really unthinkable," he said. ![]() "Our culture, our psyche has been perverted, to the point where many of us do not see reality, even when faced with fact." "What has become of us?" he asked, his eyes looking around for answers among relics of the dictatorship in the now Covid-shuttered museum. Thousands of supporters of Philippine presidential candidate Ferdinand Marcos Jr cheer at the last campaign rally ahead of the May 9 election JAM STA ROSA AFP 'What has become of us?'įor Ilagan, the Marcos renaissance is as painful as it is unfathomable. On Monday, his only son, Ferdinand Marcos Junior, popularly known as "Bongbong", is expected to win the presidential election in a landslide. The party finally ended in 1986 when they were ousted in a "People Power" revolution and sent into exile.īut three decades after Marcos died disgraced in Hawaii, his image and political dynasty are being resurrected. In Manila, people still recall audacious palace parties that raged into the early morning, and when Imelda decided to requisition a plane and fly guests to Hong Kong for an impromptu shopping trip. While cracking down on dissent and dishing out contracts to cronies, they looted an estimated $10 billion from the state, created an island reserve for African wildlife and - infamously - amassed a collection of 3,000 shoes. Marcos and his wife Imelda would eventually become international bywords for dictatorial excess. ![]() Her remains have never been found.īut for a large number of Ilagan's 110 million fellow citizens, memories of Marcos's power-crazed era of brutality have faded or blurred.įerdinand Marcos ruled the Philippines for two decades, becoming increasingly dictatorial and kleptocratic as his rule came under threat.Īmnesty International estimates his security forces either killed, tortured, sexually abused, mutilated or arbitrarily detained about 70,000 opponents. ![]() He remembers too the aching loss brought by his sister Rizalina's abduction and her presumed extrajudicial execution by Marcos's agents. Former political prisoner Bonifacio Ilagan looks at the "Wall of Remembrance" showing names of victims from the martial law era under former dictator Ferdinand Marcos JAM STA ROSA AFP
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