Imee done with apologizing for atrocities during Marcos regime

Ilocos Norte Governor Imee Marcos is done with saying sorry for the atrocities perpetrated by the Marcos regime during the Martial Law years.

“Ilang beses na rin ako nag-apologize sa kung sino mang nasaktan sa hindi inaasahang mga pangyayari. Pero sinabi na rin ni Bongbong at paulit-ulit na sinasabi ng nanay ko, hindi naman pupuwede iyon,” Marcos said Tuesday after filing her certificate for candidacy for the 2019 Senate race.

"Bakit kami mag-a-admit sa hindi namin ginawa?" Marcos added, referring to herself, her brother Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr., and their mother, former first lady and current Ilocos Norte Representative Imelda Marcos.

Bongbong accompanied Marcos when she filed her candidacy at the Commission on Elections headquarters in Intramuros.

Thousands of Filipinos, from the Marcoses' political opponents to ordinary citizens, were victims of arrests, summary executions, enforced disappearances, and torture during the Martial Law years and up until Marcos was toppled from power in 1986.

Based on Amnesty International's records, from 1975 to 1985 there were at least 3,200 victims of extrajudicial killings; 77,000 political detainees; 3,500 torture victims; and more than 700 disappearances.

Twenty-six years after the Marcoses were ousted from Malacañang, a Human Rights Victims Reparation and Recognition Act was enacted into law in 2012. This measure mandates the Philippine government to compensate the victims of human rights violations during the Martial Law years using P10 billion of the ill-gotten wealth retrieved by the Philippine government from the Marcoses' Swiss bank accounts. — BM, GMA News