THE MANILA TIMES
THE Philippines for the first time in 40 years will air on Sunday the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos’ full television broadcast declaring the martial law that led to two decades of brutal rule.
Showing the speech in full will ensure that the public will “never forget” the atrocities during Marcos’s rule, which was marked by widespread human rights abuses that saw hundreds of activities killed, jailed or abducted by the dictator’s forces, the office of President Benigno Aquino 3rd said.
The speech is to be aired on government’s official interactive portal (www.gov.ph) as well as the website of ABS-CBN television, the country’s leading private broadcaster once padlocked by the Marcos regime.
“It’s a very nice resource for you to understand and to be aware of what happened in those times,” Palace deputy spokesman Abigail Valte said.
“So we encourage everybody to go visit the website.”
The video was from the archives of ABS-CBN and will be made available to the public beginning on Sunday evening “exactly 40 years to the date and time of the original broadcast in 1972”, the government said.
The government had also posted online contents of Marcos’s personal diary, giving a rare glimpse into the mind of the dictator as martial unfolded.
Marcos signed the martial law order on September 21, 1972, but officially announced it to a shocked Filipino public two days later.
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