Bianca Gonzales figured in an online conversation about Martial Law when she responded to a Twitter user who reacted to her posting a video about the victims of human rights abuses during the Marcos regime.
Gonzales is one of the more influential Filipino celebrities on Twitter with 5.41 million followers.
It all started when Gonzales retweeted the post of a netizen, @philbertdy.
@iamsuperbianca @philbertdy so what if there’s martial law?
— Jason Lim (@boynxtdoor4u) August 9, 2016
Another Twitter user, @boynxtdoor4u, reacted by asking, “so what if there’s martial law?” to which Gonzales replied with a link to a YouTube video called “Millennials for Martial Law.”
Please do not ask such things, @boynxtdoor4u. ? Here: https://t.co/ISm1CsKwtC https://t.co/J9mOGOkGKJ
— Bianca Gonzalez (@iamsuperbianca) August 10, 2016
The video was produced and posted on Facebook by Campaign Against the Return of the Marcoses to Malacañang (Carmma). It went viral a few days after it was posted online on May 3.
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According to entertainment news portal PEP.ph, one netizen, @kamkamote, whose tweets have since been protected, said that the Martial Law video was an old one and that she should move on.
The Pinoy Big Brother host told the netizen that hopefully, she does not have grandparents who suffered during Martial Law.
@kamkamote Sana wala kang lolo o lola na nakaranas ng abuso nung Martial Law. Di to tungkol sa eleksyon. Ito’y para hindi na maulit yun.
— Bianca Gonzalez (@iamsuperbianca) August 10, 2016
She added that the issue is not related to the election, but is instead about not repeating history.
In another tweet, Gonzales also asked the netizen if she could tell a grandmother who was raped and tortured during Martial Law to move on.
.@kamkamote Kaya mo bang sabihin sa isang lola na ginahasa at kinuryente ang ari noong Martial Law na “Move on na teh?”
— Bianca Gonzalez (@iamsuperbianca) August 10, 2016
Addressing the issue that Marcos sympathizers throw at anti-Marcos sentiments about the act of forgiving and forgetting the past, Gonzales tweeted this.
To forgive is divine. Pero pano kung di naman humingi ng tawad o ng forgiveness? #NeverForget
— Bianca Gonzalez (@iamsuperbianca) August 10, 2016
The hashtag #NeverForget has been widely used online considered to be a “commemorative political slogan” used to encourage people to remember national and international tragedies, including Martial Law.
Aside from using #NeverForget to tweet about Martial Law, Twitter was also inundated with #RPNonfiction tweets, telling more facts about what happened during one of the darkest periods in Philippine history.
Talks about Martial Law heated up once more on the Internet after President Rodrigo Duterte gave the go signal to have the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos Sr. buried at the Libingan ng mga Bayani this September.
Sources: (pep.ph, twitter.com, rappler.com)
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