BBM Election Showed ML Doesn’t Matter To Pinoys – Imee

President Marcos’ victory in the elections was a clear judgment of the Filipinos who do not care about martial law declared by his father and namesake, Sen. Imee Marcos said on Wednesday, the 50th anniversary of the declaration of military rule.

“Our country is our people and because the voice of the people is the voice of the God, the election to the presidency of my brother is the clearest judgment of the people that the martial law (issue) thrown at my father does not matter to Filipinos,” the senator said in Filipino.

The senator led a face-to-face press conference for the martial law anniversary at the Marcos Mansion in San Juan, which was attended by family supporters.

“What Filipinos want is development, a prosperity that can only be achieved if there is peace, which is also the desire of public servants who are in front of you,” she said.

“Who am I to handcuff those who have made mistakes, me and my family are not perfect, who am I but a Filipino always yearning for security, unity and holding hands and chest, saluting the national flag, saluting bravery and shaking hands with fellow Filipinos,” Marcos said.

Meanwhile, Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Juan Ponce Enrile told the Senate on Wednesday that if then president Ferdinand Marcos did not declare martial law in 1972, the Philippines could have become like North Korea.

Enrile was one of the resource persons in the continuation of the Senate hearing presided over by Sen. Robinhood Padilla on the possible amendment of the 1987 Constitution.

“If martial law was not declared, we might not be talking like this, we are like North Korea, our king is Kim Jong-un,” said Enrile, who was the defense secretary when martial law was imposed on Sept. 21, 1972.

Padilla clarified this with Enrile by asking, “Are we telling the youth that we owe our freedom today to martial law? The martial law that protected our freedom that we enjoy today?”

“That’s what I think. But it was revised during the term of Cory,” Enrile said, referring to the revolutionary government of the late president Corazon Aquino after Marcos was ousted through the people power revolution.

Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel III asked Enrile about the existence of the term limit and that Marcos’ term would have ended in 1973 if he did not declare martial law. Marcos stayed in power until 1986.

“As a matter of perspective to save the Republic of the Philippines, there were other capable people if the elections were followed, then the next president takes the oath to protect and respect the Constitution and save the Republic of the Philippines,” Enrile said.

“As I read it, then president Marcos believed that only he could save the country. That cannot be true. There were others who would have saved the Republic and then we would have followed the Constitution and respected the will of the people who would have elected the people they wanted to elect in the scheduled elections,” he said.

Enrile said the previous presidents fought the communists and until today they are fighting the government: “Tell me what other methods you can find. So many of the leaders pretending to be leaders of this country during that time were in cahoots and open supporters of this menace of this country.”

Pimentel answered, “With respect to the other leaders you mentioned when it was time to go, they trusted the system that the leaders who will be elected after them will protect the Republic.”

“What happened, happened, we just have to look at the past, learn from the past and be guided in making decisions in the future,” said Pimentel, whose late father former Senate president Aquilino Pimentel Jr. was among those detained during martial law. – With Helen Flores, Emmanuel Tupas