Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr, the son of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos Sr, was last week declared the next president of the Philippines. He will take over on June 30th from Rodrigo Duterte and will serve until 2028.
The brutal and corrupt dictatorship of Marcos Jr’s father lasted from 1965 until 1986, holding the country under martial law for 14 years. Tens of thousands of people were imprisoned, tortured, or killed for criticizing the government, in addition to widespread corruption that resulted in an estimated $10 billion stolen from the people. The dictatorship ended in a popular uprising in 1986.
The Marcoses have repeatedly denied their misuse of the state funds. They have never apologized, nor been held accountable for the human rights abuses committed during the dictatorship. Quite the opposite – a decade-long whitewashing campaign has been rebranding the Marcos family’s name and image by presenting the dictatorship as a golden age of prosperity, ending up in the win of the dictator’s son as president.
Land is Life stands firmly with our partners in the Philippines who are outraged and terrified of the consequences of the election results. Please find below a statement of the Cordillera Peoples Alliance, our close partner that is committed to the promotion and defense of Indigenous peoples’ rights, social justice, and democracy.
STATEMENT FROM CPA
For many of us, especially the victims of Martial Law, we cannot accept Bongbong Marcos as the President. And we are well within our rights to reject the undemocratic and fraud-tainted results of the 2022 elections. It is a result of a massive and long running disinformation campaign; malicious and wanton red-tagging; political repression leading to disenfranchisement; a non-transparent voting system and a Duterte handpicked Commission on Elections. Marcos and Duterte have benefited from a system that already laid the ground for a Marcos restoration and a Duterte extension.
In the course of the national elections, we have proven that there is no such thing as Solid North or the regional voting bloc of the northern provinces of the Philippines for the Marcos family as claimed by the Marcoses. The results of the elections cannot validate the myth that the Cordillera remains to be a Marcos country. We have never been,
and we will never be.
The celebration of the 38th Peoples Cordillera Day and the #TakderKordi Grand Rally held on May 2, 2022 are both historical activities that truly show the peoples’ unity against rotten and corrupt politics – both a testament that the Cordillera people
will not bow down to tyranny and dictatorship.
An election riddled with fraud and manipulations cannot stand against the hundreds and thousands of people who stood up. The Cordillera stood up, before and until now!
Now, we continue the fight. We continue to live out the legacy of our
Cordillera heroes and martyrs of the anti-Marcos dictatorship!
