11/20/2016

Dear Imee: An Open Letter to Imee Marcos

Please do not trivialize the anti-Marcos-burial protesters by calling us "yellowish."

During Martial Law, my personal friends were jailed, tortured, raped, maimed, and murdered; we lost our jobs because your father shut down media; we lost our legal rights because he suspended the writ of habeas corpus; plus many more atrocities.

Would you call those “yellowish?”

You let your father’s body fester, displaying to the world his replica, for 27 years so that you could, on November 18, 2016, 12 noon, brandish his power over Filipinos once again by burying him at the Libingan ng mga Bayani (Heroes’ Shrine).

You opened up our old wounds; you forced us to relive those dark, dark years in our country's history.   

Forgive? Yes, every Christian must. But reward? Reward the perpetrator of beastly crimes with a hero’s burial? Marcos is not a hero.

So please do not gag us nor kill our spirit, like your father did, by branding us “yellowish.” Call us by our real names:

Martial Law Victims.

We.are.not.yellowish.

We are black. Black with and in pain. 
 
Without our loving God, it would be difficult to make our way through the darkness. "Even when I walk through the darkest valley, I will not be afraid, for you are close beside me. Your rod and your staff protect and comfort me." Psalm 23:4 (NLT)

May the grace of humility find you, Imee. When it does, I pray that you receive it.

4 comments:

Yay Padua-Olmedo said...

Thanks for saying it so succintly for our generation. Showed my students a fast facts video of the Marcos years today. This is must reading too in my next session.

Grace D. Chong said...

I am grateful that I didn't get any cyber bully or troll for this post. As Martial law victims, we are helpless. But with democracy, today, we have a voice.

Grace D. Chong said...

My prayer: that the gods that be don't gag us once more.

Unknown said...

"The glory of saving ones country cannot be attributed to the one who has caused its ruins" jprizal