Filipinos urged to ‘fight historical revisionism’

Filipinos should remember the lessons of martial law and push back any attempts to revise it, the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) said during the 34th anniversary of the Edsa People Power Revolution.

According to CHR spokesman Jacqueline de Guia yesterday, fighting historical revisionism should also be coupled with standing up against attempts to undermine human rights — just like what happened during the term of former president Ferdinand Marcos.

“More than three decades since the peaceful revolution, our continuing duty is to remember.

“It is in remembering that we protect our country against the many forms of human rights violations arising from authoritarian tendencies.

We must learn from our history – knowing that our past informs our present and moulds our future, ” De Guia said.

“As we see signs of shrinking of civic space and historical revisionism, we must push back.

“Let us resist efforts that seek to redefine human rights as only reserved to a few. Human rights is for all. “This comes with the reminder that the government exists to protect and uphold the rights of its people – regardless of their race, colour, gender, religion, or affiliation, ” she added.

In February 1986, the Marcos family fled Malacanang after protests where people have gathered to shield military defectors from government forces, which included fighter planes and tanks.

After the Edsa revolution, the CHR was established to serve as a watchdog against potential abuses.

Recently though, groups supportive of the Marcos family have pushed to revise history by picturing the martial law period the “golden age” of the country.

Marcos’ son and former senator Bongbong Marcos even called for a revision of textbooks being used to teach school children, as the civil cases were being dismissed at the anti-graft court Sandiganbayan. —Philippine Daily Inquirer/ANN