Catholic educators vow to stop Marcos jnr rewriting history of father's dictatorship

Catholic educators in the Philippines have slammed the son of the deposed dictator Ferdinand Marcos who is attempting to revise history in his tilt at the vice-presidency in upcoming elections.

According to the latest polls Ferdinand Marcos Jr is in a statistical tie to win the election for vice president in May despite refusing to condemn his father’s regime, which was responsible for human rights abuses, widespread corruption and creating a national debt that crippled the country between 1972 and 1981.

Marcos - who is polling strongly with younger people who are not old enough to remember his father’s dictatorship - has claimed that the general sentiment that he is discovering on the campaign trail is that life was better during his father’s regime. He has also refused to rule out running for the presidency at a later date.

An open letter signed by 412 of the most prominent Catholics in education, including the Catholic Educational Association of the Philippines and the presidents of the five Jesuit-run universities in the Southeast Asian country, have promised to do all they can to highlight the “harrowing horrors” Marcos inflicted on the Philippines during his dictatorship.

“The Marcos dictatorship should be remembered as one of the darkest periods of Philippines history,” the statement said. “We refuse to forget the atrocities committed by the Marcos regime, and we renew our demand that the perpetrators of these crimes be brought to justice.

“Those who dared challenge the regime’s monopoly on power whether politicians, business people, political activists, organised labour, peasants or urban poor, church workers, students - your or old, rich or poor - were intimidated, imprisoned, kidnapped tortured or summarily executed.”

The Catholic educators added: “We reaffirm our responsibilities - as teachers and professionals [to impart] to the young that the structures, actions and ideas - including the many lies - that allowed the Marcos dictatorship to impose itself should be eliminated and never allowed again to flourish.”

Marcos, who died while in exile in Hawaii, is believed to have amassed a fortune of up to $20bn during his time as leader of the Philippines, much of it yet to be recovered.

His widow, Imelda, who was known for her extensive fashion and jewellery collection, which included more than 3,000 pairs of shoes, is a member of Congress. The Philippines is due to auction off a collection of her recovered jewellery in the next months, which is forecast to net more than $21m.