50 years after martial law, Marcos Jr. speaks at the United Nations

During the UN General Assembly, the Philippine president spoke of respect for international law, while activists called for the period of the dictatorship to be remembered. Misinformation abounds on social media, but according to Amnesty International at least 70,000 people were jailed during the nine years of military rule. Archbishop of Manila: “Let us not forget the dark days.”

Manila ( / Agencies) – On the 50th anniversary of the imposition of martial law and 36 years after the expulsion of his father and dictator from the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. delivered his first speech at the UN headquarters in New York. While local activists demonstrated against abuse documented by Amnesty International As early as the 1970s, Marcos Jr. delivered a speech yesterday at the UN General Assembly. The president recalled his country’s contributions to the “predictability and stability of international law” and praised the “1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea”, in a clear reference to the dispute with Beijing over control of the South China Sea.

The Philippine president also called on industrialized countries to correct “historical injustices” in dealing with climate change, “the greatest threat affecting nations and peoples.” Referring to the war in Ukraine, he echoed calls for UN Security Council reform.

But while at the international level the rule of law and the “principles of equity and justice” are praised, the same is not true internally: tens of thousands of relatives of victims who have been tortured, imprisoned, murdered or disappeared under martial law. The reports of Amnesty They speak of 3,275 extrajudicial executions, 35,000 people tortured and at least 70,000 people detained between 1972 and 1981.

However, disinformation regarding the dictatorship continues to spread like wildfire on Philippine social networks -a “golden age”, as it was described during the election campaign of this year. In recent days, various accounts on TikTok and Facebook have released videos reproducing Marcos Sr.’s speeches to the international media in 1982. At the time, the dictator claimed that experts from human rights groups had never visited the Philippines and that his investigations were based on “hearsay”. The truth is that Marcos himself had declared in an interview with Amnesty in 1975 that he had imprisoned 50,000 political opponents, among them religious, activists, lawyers and journalists.

Martial law, imposed to counter “communist and Muslim insurrection,” according to the Marcos family, was revoked in 1982. The dictatorship collapsed just five years later thanks to popular revolts in favor of democracy.

“The Marcoses must at least acknowledge their role in those dark days,” said Carlos Conde, a researcher at Human Rights Watch. “If the truth is not told and without a space to understand and accept what happened during martial law, we can never move forward.” Only about 11,000 people have been recognized as official victims of the regime. At the same time, several politicians of the time involved in the repression of the opposition they still have ties to the current government.

“Let us not forget the lessons of martial law. We have already seen the light. Let us not return to darkness,” said today Cardinal José Advíncula, Archbishop of Manila. “We have learned that true development is based on justice and peace. We have learned to fight for the truth. We have learned the value of democracy and the power of the people.” But we will never really learn these valuable lessons if we forget or insist on not acknowledging the darkness of history.”