Manila The son of former President Ferdinand Marcos is calling for an end to an informal policy observed by presidential administrations to exact revenge on officials of the previous government.
“We should do away with what we have been seeing in the past few years when recent administrations adopted a deliberate campaign of vengeance against their political foes, practically making it a national policy,” Senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr said in a radio interview.
Marcos Jr said being caught up in such a cycle of retribution is not only counterproductive since it wastes government resources, but also serves to divide Filipinos.
He cited the case of former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo who had sent her predecessor President Joseph Estrada to jail on charges of plunder.
Arroyo had met the same fate under the administration of incumbent President Benigno Aquino III.
The government of Aquino had also actively sought the impeachment of former Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona — an appointee of Arroyo.
Recently, opposition senators Juan Ponce Enrile, Jinggoy Estrada, and Ramon Revilla, Jr. had also been jailed by the administration of Aquino for corruption.
While Marcos said that while such actions may be understandable in the pursuit of justice, it is a different matter when organs of government are deliberately employed.
He called on the succeeding administration after Aquino’s, to avoid having a direct hand in the filing of such charges and should treat them as any ordinary criminal case.
“The next President should not make it a government policy to jail political opponents. We should leave that culture of vengeance behind us. What the next President should strive is to unite the country so that every Filipino could work together for the good of our country — not for personal gain, not for the benefit of a party, but for the benefit of the entire nation,” Marcos Jr stressed.
“The top priority of the next President is not to go after political opponents and play politics. His priority should be how to push the development of our country, how to improve the lives of our people, how to grow the economy,” he added.
It is well known that Marcos Jr’s family had suffered much under the administration of the incumbent President’s mother, Corazon C. Aquino.
The administration of Ferdinand Marcos Sr was ousted in an uprising in 1986 following more than two decades of autocratic rule.
The Marcoses had been vilified by the administration that followed them and it took a generation before the family had gained back their stature in politics.
