Govt creates body to collate stories of Martial Law victims
InterAksyon.com
The online news portal of TV5
The Philippine government will soon create a five-member advisory board to collate stories of those who have sacrificed their lives during Martial Law, a move seen to rectify "revisionist history" that painted a bright picture of military rule.
"The Filipino people must remember those who have sacrificed their lives during Martial Law in order for us to have the freedom we experience today," President Benigno Aquino III in administrative order number 30 that created the board.
Allotted with an initial P5 million budget, the the Martial Law Historical Advisory Committee will undertake the systematic gathering, preservation and publication of the testimonies, oral histories, documentaries, film and audio records during military rule four decades ago.
The advisory committee will also compile these materials that will make possible the "true account" of the events that transpired during the dictatorship of the late strongman Ferdinand Marcos.
The materials shall be made available through the websites of the Official Gazette, the Presidential Museum and Library, and the National Historical Commission of the Philippines.
The NHCP chairperson shall head the committee, together with the director of the National Library, executive director of the National Archives, and two individuals to be appointed by Aquino as members.
Earlier, Aquino said the government must act against revisionist and propagandist history on Martial Law.
"I will not allow it that the lies and mistakes will be passed on to our next generation," said Aquino on September 21, when the country marked the 40th anniversary of Martial Law.
Aquino said only truthful information must be printed and not "the web of lies spun by propagandists and revisionists."
Among the revisionist information that he wants corrected are the following: that Martial Law resulted in fewer crimes, that Martial Law caused the number of communist rebels to dwindle, and that the country's economy grew during the Marcos regime.
Aquino said the number of forced disappearances, salvage, and summary executions were at record high during Martial Law.
Citing the book Dictatorship and Revolution, Aquino added that communist rebels ballooned to 40,000 in 1983.
