‘Our blood is boiling’: Victims angry as son of dictator closes in on Philippine presidency
By Karen Lema
MANILA (Reuters) – Former political prisoner Cristina Bawagan nonetheless has the gown she wore the day she was arrested, tortured and sexually abused by troopers through the late Philippines’ dictator Ferdinand Marcos’s brutal period of martial legislation.
Bawagan fears the horrors of Marcos’s rule can be diminished if his namesake son wins the presidency in subsequent week’s election, a victory that may cap a three-decade political fightback for a household pushed out in a 1986 “individuals energy” rebellion.
Also called “Bongbong”, Marcos Jr. has benefited from what some political analysts describe as a decades-long public relations effort to change perceptions of his household, accused of residing lavishly on the helm of one in every of Asia’s most infamous kleptocracies.
Rivals of the household say the presidential run is an try to rewrite historical past, and alter a story of corruption and authoritarianism related along with his father’s period.
“This election is not only a struggle for elected positions. It’s also a struggle towards disinformation, faux information, and historic revisionism,” Leni Robredo, Marcos’s essential rival within the presidential race, advised supporters in March.
TSEK.PH, a fact-checking initiative for the Could 9 vote, advised Reuters final month it has debunked scores of martial law-related disinformation it says had been used to rehabilitate, erase or burnish the discreditable report of Marcos Snr.
Marcos Jr.’s camp didn’t reply to written requests for remark from Reuters on Bawagan’s story.
Marcos Jr., who final week known as his late father a “political genius”, has beforehand denied claims of spreading misinformation and his spokesperson has mentioned Marcos doesn’t have interaction in unfavourable campaigning.
Bawagan, 67, mentioned martial legislation victims like her wanted to share their tales to counter the portrayal of the elder Marcos’s regime as a peaceable, golden age for the Southeast Asian nation.
“It is extremely vital they see major proof that it actually occurred,” mentioned Bawagan whereas displaying the printed gown which had a tear beneath the neckline the place her torturer handed a blade throughout her chest and fondled her breasts.
THOUSANDS IMPRISONED, KILLED
The elder Marcos dominated for 20 years from 1965, nearly half of it below martial legislation.
Throughout that point, 70,000 individuals had been imprisoned, 34,000 had been tortured, and three,240 had been killed, in response to figures from Amnesty Worldwide – figures which Marcos Jr. questioned in a January interview.
Bawagan, an activist, was arrested on Could 27, 1981 by troopers within the province of Nueva Ecija for alleged subversion and delivered to a “safehouse” the place she was crushed as they tried to extract a confession from her.
“I’d obtain slaps on my face each time they weren’t glad with my solutions and that was on a regular basis,” Bawagan mentioned. “They hit strongly at my thighs and clapped my ears. They tore my duster (gown) and fondled my breasts.”
“The toughest factor was after they put an object in my vagina. That was the worst a part of it and all all through I used to be screaming. Nobody appeared to listen to,” mentioned Bawagan, a mom of two.
‘NO ARRESTS’
In a dialog with Marcos Jr. that appeared on YouTube in 2018, Juan Ponce Enrile, who served because the late dictator’s defence minister, mentioned not one particular person was arrested for his or her political and non secular views, or for criticising the elder Marcos.
Nonetheless, greater than 11,000 victims of state brutality throughout martial legislation later acquired reparations utilizing hundreds of thousands from Marcos’s Swiss financial institution deposits, a part of billions the household siphoned off from the nation’s coffers and recovered by the Philippine authorities. Amongst them was Felix Dalisay, who was detained for 17 months from August 1973 after he was crushed and tortured by troopers attempting to drive him to tell on different activists, inflicting him to endure listening to loss.
“They kicked me even earlier than I boarded the navy jeep so I fell and hit my face on the bottom,” Dalisay mentioned, displaying a scar on his proper eye as he recounted the day he was arrested.
After they reached the navy headquarters, Dalisay mentioned he was delivered to an interrogation room, the place troopers repeatedly clapped his ears, kicked and hit him, generally with a butt of a rifle, throughout questioning.
“They began by inserting bullets utilized in a .45 calibre gun between my fingers and they might squeeze my hand. That basically damage. In the event that they weren’t glad with my solutions, they’d hit me,” Dalisay pointing to totally different components of his physique.
The return of a Marcos to the nation’s seat of energy is unthinkable for Dalisay, who turned 70 this month.
“Our blood is boiling at that thought,” mentioned Dalisay. “Marcos Sr declared martial legislation then they’ll say no one was arrested, and tortured? We’re right here talking whereas we’re nonetheless alive.”
(Reporting by Karen Lema; Modifying by Lincoln Feast.)
