Ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales refused to make her stance on the Marcos burial known at first, but she later granted reporters an interview at the sidelines of the UP College of Law reunion on November 26.
“Just because you can, does not mean you should,” Morales said, seemingly alluding to the sneaky November 18 burial of the remains of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos.
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Morales also spoke out against the “historical revisionism” involving the Marcos regime.
She quoted 19th century historian and Cambridge professor Lord Acton as she said, “As it turns out nowadays, those who could not remember history have the tendency to write a new one.”
“Much worse, there are a lot of people who simply do not want to read their history. Period. This alarming attitude is appalling, to say the least, which opens a large portion of society vulnerable to a revisionist-distortionist proclivity,” she added.
Morales also lamented how many Filipinos are vulnerable to fake news, lies and half-truths.
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“A big part of the population would rather believe and share fake news sites and echo the baseless assertions of dubious bloggers and flamebaiters. They no longer care to verify the veracity of these allegations. When supposed ‘truths’ about Martial Law and the purported ‘progress’ that the Philippines enjoyed during the regime are considered more fact than fiction, then we see a transformation of our values as a people,” she said.
The Ombudsman added that fighting against corruption is also fighting for human rights, “especially since public authority is supposed to be the first to observe human rights.”
“Generally, for every type of abuse of public office, there is a counterpart abuse of human rights, albeit in varying degrees. What perhaps makes corruption uniquely worse is the element of private gain, which may pecuniarily translate to billions that should have trickled down to those deprived – as they already are – of the entitlements to their birthright as human beings,” Morales said.
Morales also slammed historical revisionism pertaining to the happenings during the Marcos regime as “an affront to our collective consciousness as a nation, aside from adding insult to injury to the entire citizenry as collective victims of the kleptocratic act of stashing ill-gotten wealth as judicially ascertained.”
Source: (gmanetwork.com)
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