Former senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. drew a lot of flak from the opposition as he demanded anew the revision of school history textbooks that pictured his father, the late President Ferdinand E. Marcos, and their family as “bad” people.
In separate statements, the Liberal Party and the ACT Teachers Partylist chided the former senator for insisting that account about the abuses and massive plunder of government coffers that the Marcoses allegedly committed during his father’s reign, were all false and politically motivated.
In a news conference, the young Marcos was apparently inspired to call for a revision of history textbooks as his family received consecutive judicial victories against numerous civil cases involving his family’s alleged ill-gotten wealth.
“We have been calling on that for years. What has been proven wrong is that they continue to contend – essentially, you are teaching the children lies,” Marcos told reporters during the forum held in Manila.
But Marcos critics are not convinced.
“This is a clear move at historical revisionism and another desperate attempt by the Marcoses to erase the memory of the horrors of Martial Law and absolve the sins of their father,” said former Rep. Erin Tañada in a statement issued for the Liberal Party.
Tañada, LP vice president for external affairs, currently the Liberal Party’s (LP) vice president for external affairs, said Marcos wanted Filipinos to just forget the atrocities, corruption and human rights abuses that the late president had committed during the martial law regime.
In a separate statement, Asst. Minority Leader and ACT Teachers Partylist Rep. France Castro criticized the Marcos proposal as she pointed out that the accounts written in school text books are accurate stories about the incidence of injustice committed against Filipinos during the Marcos regime. (Ben Rosario)
“Teachers will not allow a revision of history books and rewrite it as if the Marcos era was all good, no injustice and corruption when in fact history already judged him as a plunderer, murderer, fascist and criminal,” Castro said.
She added: “The Marcoses have several sins to the people especially to the education sector.”
According to Castro majority of the problems confronting schools such as budgetary constraints, lack of teachers and educational facilities and dilapidated school buildings would have not happened if the Marcos administration did not abuse its power.
“Revising the history books to rehabilitate the image of the Marcos family would mean we would be nullifying the sacrifices of those who lived and died fighting tyranny and plunder,” stressed Castro.
