“No to Bongbong Marcos as Vice President! No to another Marcos in Malacañang!”
Ito ang sigaw ng daan-daang mamamayang dumalo sa kampanya laban sa kandidatura ni Senador Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. bilang bise-presidente ngayong 2016 elections.
Kaugnay ito ng tinaguriang "Campaign Against the Return of the Marcoses to Malacanang"—na nagpapakilala bilang CARMMA—na inilunsad sa Bahay ng Alumni ng Unibersidad ng Pilipinas, sa Diliman, Quezon City, kahapon, February 22.
Ilan sa mga nanguna sa pagtitipon ng CARMMA supporters ay si former Vice President Teofisto Guingona Jr., na sa edad ng 87 ay malakas pa ring sumigaw ng "Never again to Marcos!"
Naroon din ang mga dating senador na sina Aquilino "Nene" Pimentel at Rene Saguisag, na kilalang human rights lawyers noong panahon ng martial law.
Dumalo rin si National Artist Bienvenido Lumbera at Zone 1 Tondo (ZOTO) leader Trining Herrera.
Nagbasa naman ng kanyang tulang "Prometheus Unbound" ang film writer, respected journalist, and current YES! Magazine executive director na si Jose "Pete" Lacaba.
At nag-emcee naman ang movie director at aktibistang si Joel Lamangan.
Marami sa mga malalaking pangalang ito ay nakaranas ng pagkakulong at torture noong panahon ni Presidente Ferdinand Marcos.
Si Bongbong ay anak ng yumaong presidente, na nanungkulan bilang diktador sa ilalim ng martial law, hanggang sa mapatalsik ito sa puwesto nang maganap ang makasaysayang EDSA People Power Revolution ng 1986.
Ayon sa grupong CARMMA, hindi nila hahayaang mawalan ng saysay ang ipinaglaban ng maraming mamamayang nagpatalsik sa pamilya Marcos mula sa Malacañang matapos ng 20 taong paghahari sa bansa.NO TO ANOTHER MARCOS in Malacanang
Posted by Inday Espina-Varona on Sunday, February 21, 2016
“We say NO to Bongbong Marcos as vice president—because he is not the guiltless son that he presents himself to be,” saad sa opisyal na pahayag ng CARMMA.
Idinetalye rin sa opisyal na pahayag ng CARMMA ang "pitong kasalanan" ni Senador Bongbong, taliwas sa makailang-beses na pahayag ng senador na wala siyang dapat ihingi ng tawad sa bayan.
NARITO ANG EXCERPTS SA MANIFESTO NG CARMMA:
1. MARCOSES ILLEGITIMATE WEALTH.
“Sin No.1. Bongbong arrogantly peddles the lie that his father’s unbelievable wealth is legitimate.
“In 2003, however, the Supreme Court defined the ill-gotten wealth of the Marcos family as those in excess of their total legal income of around $304,000 only from 1965 to 1986.
“This belies the claim of Bongbong that the wealth of his father came from his alleged law practice.
“So far, the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) has managed to recover about $4 billion, less than half of the $10-billion fortune believed to have been amassed by the Marcoses through the years.
"These included billions of pesos worth of deposits in Swiss banks, and shares in the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co., Manila Electric Co., and San Miguel Corporation, among many others.
2. ON BONGBONG’S QUESTIONABLE LIFESTYLE AND ELECTION FUND
"Sin No.2. While the sins of the father may not be passed on to the son, the son could very well inherit the fruits of the legendary Marcos plunder, much of which has yet to be uncovered, and which Bongbong will never reveal and give back to the people.
"Bongbong, for 30 years, has been a mere salaried government official.
"How could the Marcos family live in style all these years?
"Where is his election fund coming from?
3. BONGBONG’S ACTIVE PARTICIPATION DURING HIS FATHER’S DICTATORSHIP.
"Sin No.3. Bongbong whitewashes the Marcos dictatorship’s crony capitalism, of which he had been a part.
"In 1985, when he was 26 years old, his father appointed him chairman of the board of the Philippine Communications Satellite Corporation (Philcomsat), receiving a monthly salary of anywhere between $9,700 to $97,000.
"This, despite that fact that he rarely went to the Philcomsat office.
"In 1986, government auditors would discover that Philcomsat was one of the many corporations and organizations used to siphon ill-gotten wealth out of the country.
"The economy bled to death in large measure due to behest loans granted by Ferdinand Sr. to his cronies who had little or no collateral. But these cronies were mere dummies of Marcos.
"The biggest Marcos crony was his partner-in-crime, Imelda Romualdez, whose free rides in the Philippine Airlines made its debt balloon to $13.8 billion in 1986 before EDSA 1.
"She was also the head of the Metro Manila Commission (precursor of the Metro Manila Development Authority), which, by the end of 1985, had accumulated debts of P1.99 billion (which included $100 million in foreign loans) in its 10 years of existence.
4. COVER-UP OF CORRUPTION DURING PRESIDENT MARCOS'S DICTATORSHIP.
"Sin No. 4. Bongbong covers up the unprecedented plunder and economic sabotage that his father committed in the 21 years of his anti-people rule.
"Under the Marcos dictatorship, the number of Filipinos living below the poverty line doubled from 18 million in 1965 to 35 million in February 1986.
"The dictator also left behind a staggering foreign debt of $27 billion.
"This belies the claim of Bongbong that Filipinos were better off under the Marcoses.
5. BONGBONG’S REFUSAL TO SAY SORRY TO VICTIMS OF MARTIAL LAW.
"Sin No.5. Bongbong continues to defend and promote Martial Law when Filipinos suffered systematic, widespread, and state-sanctioned enforced disappearances, torture, and extrajudicial executions.
"At least 3,000 were killed and more than 30,000 were detained, brutally tortured, raped, or suffered various forms of abuse.
"Bongbong even had the gall to dismiss the 9,539 human rights victims in the Hawaii class suit who won the case against the Marcos estate as purely motivated by compensation.
“'Pera-pera lang ang habol ng mga ‘yan,’ he said.
"As a reserve officer in the Philippine Army, Bongbong wore the military combat uniform when his father was sworn into office at the balcony of Malacanang after the dictator rigged the 1986 snap presidential elections.
"Bongbong upheld electoral fraud and was ready to defend the dictatorship by arms.
6. BONGBONG’S "GRAND SCHEME TO RECAPTURE MALACANANG.”
"Sin No.6 At the expense of historical truth and justice, Bongbong now masterminds the Marcosian plot to foist upon our people the redemption of their ‘family honor’ and the perpetuation of the Marcos rule.
"It is as if the Marcos family, who lived like royalty, were not shamed and repudiated by the people in 1986 after their reign of impunity and greed.
7. BONGBONG’S INVOLVEMENT IN PORK BARREL SCAM.
"Sin No.7. Bongbong has not come out of clean in the billion-peso Napoles pork barrel scam.
"He has a lot to explain about his allocation of P100 million for ghost non-government organizations of [alleged pork barrel scam mastermind] Janet Lim Napoles."
BONGBONG'S REFUSAL TO SAY SORRY TO VICTIMS OF MARTIAL LAW. Sa panayam ng ANC Headstart noong August 2015, iginiit ni Bongbong na wala siyang kasalanan sa taong-bayan, lalo na sa mga biktima noong panahon ng martial law.
(Officially, ang martial law ay nanatili mula 1972 hanggang 1981. Ngunit sinasabi ng mga nakaranas nito na nanatili ang batas militar hanggang February 25, 1986, ang anibersaryo ng EDSA Revolution.)
Pahayag ni Senador Bongbong, “Kung meron akong sinaktan, I will always say sorry, but what have I been guilty of to apologize about?
“'Will I say sorry for the thousands and thousands of kilometers that were built?
“Will I say sorry for the agricultural policy that brought us to self-sufficiency in rice?
“Will I say sorry for the power generation?
“Will I say sorry for the highest literacy rate in Asia? What am I to say?”