MANILA, Philippines - Sen. Risa Hontiveros and former chair Etta Rosales of the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) led the distribution of an initial batch of 20 anti-Marcos books entitled “Marcos Martial Law Never Again” authored by Raissa Robles to senior high school students at the Quezon City High School yesterday morning.
Hontiveros said that the book aims to educate the students on the bad things that happened during the martial law era.
Hontiveros, who considers herself a martial law baby, said that they do not want the millennials to forget their “experiences, memories and the lessons” left by the dictatorship of the late strongman Ferdinand Marcos.
“Ayaw namin na makalimutan nila or mabura ito or mabago ng ilang mga kababayan natin na may agenda na ‘wag nang malaman, ‘wag nang singilin ang accountability, mabaon sa limot ang ganitong karanasan (We don’t want some of our citizens with their own agenda to forget or erase nor change so that we won’t demand accountability and forget our experience),” she added.
The Philippines has achieved freedom in the last 30 years after the Marcos dictatorship through the EDSA People Power revolution.
Asked if the book could still influence the minds of students more than 30 years after martial law, Hontiveros said, “it’s never too late.”
She explained that it is the responsibility of every Filipino to tell the students what happened during the martial law years.
Hontiveros said that she would go around the country to distribute the anti-Marcos books in all public senior high schools nationwide in her six-year term.
?She said that part of her salary will be used in the reproduction of the anti-Marcos book.
Meanwhile, a deceased retired Army colonel has included on his last will a wish that he shall not be buried at the Libingan ng Mga Bayani until the remains of the late president Marcos are also buried at the heroes’ cemetery in Fort Bonifacio, Taguig City.
Upon his death, former Col. Ildefonso Perez specifically wrote in his will “NOT TO BE BURIED” at the LNMB until the remains of Marcos was allowed to be interred within the same cemetery to answer for the “blood debt” to the former president for helping him and his brother survive in the Japanese concentration camp during the war. – With Perseus Echeminada