Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, November 18) — President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has said there is no need to forgive the people behind the ouster of his late father and namesake from Malacañang that led to their family’s exile in Hawaii in 1986.
Marcos made the statement in a media forum in San Francisco, California on Saturday following the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Leaders’ Summit. This was after he was asked how he felt about his upcoming visit to Honolulu and if he has forgiven the people who booted his father out of power.
“I think siguro by now – I hope by now you have realized hindi ako namemersonal (I hope by now you have realized that I’m not taking things personally),\” he said.
\”They don’t need my forgiveness,\” he said. \”If they want it, I will give it to them.”
The younger Marcos pointed out that people do not share the same political views.
“But I don’t need to…They don’t need my forgiveness,\” he said. \” If this is what they believe that they should do, then hindi lang nagpareho ‘yung aming pag-iisip o paniniwala. Eh ipaglalaban ko ‘yung aking paniniwala. Pinaglaban nila ‘yung kanilang paniniwala.”
[Translation: But I don’t need to…They don’t need my forgiveness. If this is what they believe that they should do, then our beliefs were not just the same. I had to fight for my beliefs. They also pushed for what they believe is right.]
The 1986 EDSA People Power Revolution ended the late strongman Ferdinand E. Marcos’ 20-year regime and drove his family and cronies to the United States.
While the Philippines had a newfound leadership under Corazon Aquino, the Marcoses spent the last few years of the 1980s in Hawaii where their patriarch later died due to cardiac arrest.
The Marcos family later returned to the Philippines in 1991 and slowly made a comeback in local and national politics.
Alongside his trip to the Indo Pacific Command in Hawaii, Marcos will visit “friends” who helped their family while in exile.
“It’s just I really want to go and see my old friends,\” he said. \” These were the people who looked after us after ‘86. These were the people who fed us. They brought us clothes. They brought food.”
“Kung hindi sa kanila (If not for them), I don’t know what would have happened to us,” he added.
