By Karen Lemma
MANILA (Reuters) – Former political prisoner Cristina Bawagan still has the dress she wore the day she was arrested, tortured and sexually abused by soldiers during late Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos’ brutal martial law era.
Bawagan fears the horrors of the Marcos government will lessen if his namesake son wins the presidency in next week’s election, a victory that would cap a three-decade political struggle for a family ousted in a 1986 “people power” uprising.
Also known as “Bongbong,” Marcos Jr. has profited from what some political analysts describe as a decades-long public relations effort to change perceptions of his family, accused of living lavishly at the helm of one of the most notorious kleptocracies in Asia.
Family rivals say the presidential bid is an attempt to rewrite history and change a narrative of corruption and authoritarianism associated with his father’s era.
“This election is not just a fight for elected office. It is also a fight against misinformation, fake news and historical revisionism,” Leni Robredo, Marcos’ main rival in the presidential race, told his supporters in March.
TSEK.PH, a fact-checking initiative for the May 9 vote, told Reuters last month that it has debunked scores of martial law-related disinformation that it says was used to rehabilitate, erase or polish history. embarrassing of Marcos Snr.
Marcos Jr.’s camp did not respond to Reuters’ written requests for comment on Bawagan’s story.
Marcos Jr., who last week called his late father a “political genius,” has previously denied claims of spreading misinformation and his spokesman has said Marcos does not engage in negative campaigning.
Bawagan, 67, said martial law victims like her needed to share their stories to counter the image of the elder Marcos’ regime as a peaceful, golden age for the Southeast Asian country.
“It’s very important that they see primary evidence that it really happened,” Bawagan said as she showed off the patterned dress that had a tear below the neckline where her tormentor ran a knife through her chest and fondled her breasts.
THOUSANDS IMPRISONED, MURDERED
Marcos Sr. ruled for two decades beginning in 1965, almost half of them under martial law.
During that time, 70,000 people were imprisoned, 34,000 tortured and 3,240 killed, according to figures from Amnesty International, figures that Marcos Jr. disputed in a January interview.
Bawagan, an activist, was arrested on May 27, 1981 by soldiers in the province of Nueva Ecija for alleged subversion and taken to a “safe house” where she was beaten while they tried to extract a confession from her.
“I would get slapped in the face every time they weren’t satisfied with my answers and that was all the time,” Bawagan said. “They hit me hard on the thighs and covered my ears. They ripped my overalls (dress) and fondled my breasts.”
“The hardest thing was when they put an object in my vagina. That was the worst part and the whole time I was screaming. No one seemed to listen,” said Bawagan, a mother of two.
‘NO ARRESTS’
In a conversation with Marcos Jr. that appeared on YouTube in 2018, Juan Ponce Enrile, who served as the late dictator’s defense minister, said that no one was arrested for their political and religious views, or for criticizing the elder Marcos.
However, more than 11,000 victims of state brutality during martial law later received reparations using millions of Marcos’s Swiss bank deposits, part of the billions the family siphoned from the country’s coffers and recovered from the Philippine government. Among them was Felix Dalisay, who was detained for 17 months from August 1973 after soldiers beat and tortured him to force him to report on other activists, causing him to lose his hearing.
“I was kicked before I even boarded the military jeep, so I fell and hit my face on the ground,” Dalisay said, showing a scar over his right eye as he recounted the day he was arrested.
When they arrived at the military barracks, Dalisay said he was taken to an interrogation room, where soldiers repeatedly punched his ears, kicked and hit him, sometimes with a rifle butt, during interrogation.
“They would start by stuffing spent bullets into a .45-caliber pistol between my fingers and squeezing my hand. That hurt a lot. If they were not satisfied with my answers, they beat me”, Dalisay pointing to different parts of his body. .
The return of a Marcos to the country’s seat of power is unthinkable for Dalisay, who turned 70 this month.
“Our blood is boiling at the thought,” Dalisay said. “Marcos Sr declared martial law, so they will say no one was arrested and tortured? We are here talking while we are still alive.”
(Reporting by Karen Lema; Editing by Lincoln Feast.)
Reference-news.yahoo.com