Press Release
October 18, 2018

HONTIVEROS SAYS 2019 POLLS A BATTLE VS. NATIONAL AMNESIA

Akbayan Senator Risa Hontiveros on Thursday said that there is more at stake than votes in the upcoming 2019 midterm elections. She said that next year's polls will be a battle for truth amid attempts at gross historical revisionism.

"This is a battle to defend and save historical truth and the democratic gains of the EDSA people power revolution from people who have brazenly denied the atrocities committed during Ferdinand Marcos's bloody Martial Law. This is a fight against national amnesia," Hontiveros said.

It was reported that former Senator Juan Ponce Enrile and Ilocos Norte Governor Imee Marcos, daughter of the late dictator, both filed their certificates of candidacy for a seat in the Senate. Both have publicly denied the existence of human rights violations during the Marcos dictatorship.

Marcos, in an interview, downplayed human rights abuses during her father's dictatorial rule, dismissing them as "political accusations."

Meanwhile, Enrile, in a recorded one-on-one interview with another Marcos scion, defeated vice presidential candidate Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. in September, claimed that no one was arrested for their political beliefs during dictator Marcos's martial law.

Enrile is out on bail on a plunder case against him related to the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) scam. He was allowed to post bail because of his health.

"Next year's election is a battle against forgetting. Some of the people who seek to return to power inflicted grave suffering on generations of Filipinos, and that they refuse to even acknowledge their involvement is an insult not only to democracy and freedom, but also to the victims, their families and to the future of our country," Hontiveros said.

"I appeal to the voting public to be very discerning, not to allow our elections to be used to invalidate the people's struggle against the Marcos dictatorship. We have a duty to history, and to our country, to act. In order to protect the truth, and our future, it is our duty to not only remember, but also to ensure that those who plunged our country into the pit of suffering never get to do so again," Hontiveros concluded.

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