Enrile distorting history about Martial Law - De Lima

Opposition Senator Leila M. de Lima has bewailed ex-Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile's attempt to distort history by perpetuating lies about Martial Law and freeing himself from any fault for the abuses during the Marcos regime.

De Lima, considered as a leading prisoner of conscience, reminded Enrile that there are Martial Law survivors who can always help the Filipino people to identify between truth and lies.

"Fortunately for former Senator Juan Ponce Enrile, he is blessed with a long life and a sharp mind. But late in life, he still has chosen to squander these on the perpetuation of lies about Martial Law," she said in her recent Dispatch from Crame No. 386.

"Unfortunately for him, many of their victims - those who survived the torture chambers - are still alive to remind us of the truth," she added.

In a highly criticized video posted on Bongbong Marcos' Facebook page last Sept. 20, Enrile falsely claimed no one was arrested because of political beliefs and for criticizing the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos during the Marcos regime.

The publicized one-one-one interview with Marcos and Enrile was met with public uproar, with people expressing their biggest condemnation about Enrile's lies.

"In distorting history, Enrile is only whitewashing his own role in this dark chapter of our nation's history," she said.

"His account is therefore nothing but another self-serving attempt to absolve himself from responsibility for the tortures and murders he helped perpetuate as Marcos's henchman," she added.

Noting that Enrile was the regime's Martial Law enforcer, De Lima said the former defense minister was as responsible as Marcos for the thousands killed, disappeared, tortured, and imprisoned during Martial Law.

The Senator from Bicol maintained that Enrile has already attempted to distort history several times in the past, including in his own memoirs that he released several years ago.

"His fabricated accounts were met with as much protestation then as now. He is doing the same thing now in the era of fake news, enabled no doubt by an atmosphere of blatant lying and distortion of facts by the Duterte government," she said.

It may be recalled that in Enrile's book entitled "Juan Ponce Enrile: A Memoir," published in 2012, he talked about his relationship with the past six Philippine presidents and his role in the martial law years, among others.

By peddling lies, the Senator from Bicol said Enrile is simply riding the bandwagon of disinformation and historical revisionism.

"Enrile may be as old as history, but his lies will never be as sharp as the truth etched on the bodies and minds of the survivors of Martial Law," she said.