FERDINAND “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. — namesake son of the ousted fascist dictator, the late Ferdinand Marcos, Sr. — is vying for the highest elected political position in the country to pave the way for the return of the Marcoses to Malacañang. Employing a well-funded disinformation campaign using troll farms and PR consultants, the Marcos camp is peddling the myth of the Marcos-era “golden age”, blatantly revising history as they go.
Let us debunk the myth of Marcos-era “golden age” and the Marcos’ historical revisionism using statistics.
Economic crisis:
● 1984-1985 Gross Domestic Products (GDP): negative 7.32%
● 1961 external debt $0.36 billion rose to $28 billion in 1986
● 579 businesses were illegally and violently taken over
Plunder and ill-gotten wealth:
● Conservative estimate: $5 billion to $10 billion loot of Marcos, according to Stephen Bosworth of the US Congress House Committee on Foreign Affairs. “Greatest robbery of government” according to the Guiness Book of World Records.
● Philippine Commission on Good Government (PCGG) retrieved P174.3 billion in ill-gotten wealth as of 2020; another P125.98 billion has yet to be recovered.
● Supreme Court confiscated $658 million ill-gotten wealth
● Sandiganbayan ordered the Royal Traders Bank (RTB) to return to the government hundreds of millions of pesos worth of deposits of the late president
Human Rights Violations:
● 70,000 arrested/imprisoned; 3,257 victims of extrajudicial killings; 35,000 tortured; 878 desaparacidos (missing to this day);
● Human Rights Victims Reparation and Recognition Act (RA10368) allocated P10 billion worth of compensation to the human rights victims. Money came from the funds transferred to the Philippine government based on the Dec. 10, 1997 order of Swiss Federal Supreme Court of the Marcos account in Switzerland;
● Class suit of 9,539 Martial Law victims in Hawaii against the Marcos estate. The court in Hawaii awarded to the victims $2 billion from the Marcos ill-gotten wealth.
Marcos era “golden age”?
May your choice this May 9, 2022 elections be a product of discernment and profound reflection.
Never again. Never forget.
