MANILA, Oct. 27 (PNA) — President Benigno S. Aquino III said he does not believe that the Filipino people would allow the Marcoses to return to power several decades after they ousted a dictator.
“I have faith in my bosses, the Filipino people. There is nothing that has caused me to change the faith that they are able to discern,” he told members of the foreign press during a forum held at the Solaire Resort in Parañaque City on Tuesday.
With Senator Ferdinand Marcos, Jr., son of former president Ferdinand Marcos, running for vice president in next year’s elections, President Aquino was asked to comment on the possible return of the Marcoses to power.
Asked if the Marcos family has something to apologize for after the martial rule of the late president Marcos, President Aquino said for a start, they have to admit that they have erred.
“The start of a solution is the admission of the problem or the correct identification of the problem. If they said, ‘We erred, we had this opportunity to turn this country great as our father promised, it did not happen. We apologize, we want to make amends,’ that I think would have been very, very acceptable. We are (a) forgiving people as a general rule,” the Chief Executive explained.
Instead, he said, the Marcoses have issued statements that “there is nothing to apologize for”.
The President recounted that his family and other members of their household suffered a lot during Martial Law.
His father, the late senator Benigno Aquino, Jr., was detained for years and was assassinated upon his return from the United States in August 1983.
President Aquino also said that a governess who took care of him, had been arrested several times, along with her husband, who was the family driver.
“They were both incarcerated and their only crime (was) they served in our household previous to Martial Law,” he said.
The Marcoses’ denial of what happened during Martial Law is no assurance that similar events would not occur in the future, according to the President.
“If there is denial of what happened, is there also a statement that there is no recognition that things have to be corrected down the line? And therefore, is there a promise that there will be no repetition of the same? Those are questions,” he said. (PNA)