Sept. 11 is a tragic day for the world. In the U.S., the date forever marks the Twin Tower bombings. In the Philippines meanwhile, Pinoys on the Twitterverse are commemorating #ArawNgMagnanakaw (“Thief’s Day”) to mark the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos’ 103rd birth anniversary.
Please be extra careful with your belongings today. #ArawNgMagnanakaw #MarcosNotAHero pic.twitter.com/X0jF7a780w
— 🏆 zsǝüƃ ɐɹʇǝԀ (@DarwinAwardsPH) September 11, 2020
Read: Happy Dictator Day? Human rights group slams lawmakers’ approval of ‘Marcos Day’ bill
An incensed @trillanes_gara wrote, “Ferdinand Emmanuel Edralin Marcos was a Filipino politician and kleptocrat. He’s not a hero. He didn’t do anything heroic.”
ICYMI, President Rodrigo Duterte ordered a hero’s burial in 2016 for the disgraced president despite many protesting against it. Then a year later, he said Marcos was not only a hero but he was also “the [country’s] greatest president.”
Ferdinand Emmanuel Edralin Marcos was a Filipino politician and kleptocrat. He’s not a hero. He didn’t do anything heroic.#ArawNgMagnanakaw #MarcosIsNotAHero pic.twitter.com/wak4ZvrTyt
— Gara Trillanes (@trillanes_gara) September 10, 2020
One @timid_allen posted a photo of the tenth Filipino president’s headstone, then wrote, “They forgot to put in his epitaph that the government of late President Ferdinand Marcos was also cited by Guinness World as the ‘Greatest Robbery of a Government’.”
Guinness wrote that the Philippine government declared in 1986 that at least “$860.8 million (£569.5 million) [was] salted away by the former President Ferdinand Edralin Marcos (1917–89) and his wife Imelda. The total national loss from November 1965 was believed to be $5–$10 billion.”
The former president and first lady fled to Hawaii in 1986, where the late dictator died of cardiac arrest. Imelda, who returned to the Philippines in 1991, has since dodged several civil suits but has been found guilty in 2018 of 7 counts of graft. She enjoys freedom after having posted a relatively minuscule US$7,400 bail. Imelda no longer has any pending criminal case at the Sandiganbayan.
Nakalimutan lang i-add sa epitaph that the government of the late President Ferdinand Marcos was also cited by Guinness World Records as the “Greatest Robbery of a Government” 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 #ArawNgMagnanakaw #NeverForget #MarcosNotAHero https://t.co/0DlEgKC4My pic.twitter.com/qNGAOilLqr
— Allen_Cruz (@timid_allen) September 11, 2020
Someone named @alexbarcy reminded coolly, “Sept. 11 is just going to be a normal day, keep doing normal stuff like brushing your teeth and practicing our hard-fought democracy OK?”
Sept 11 is just going to be a normal day, keep doing normal stuff like brushing your teeth and practicing our hard fought democracy OK #ArawNgMagnanakaw
— alexa (@alexbarcy) September 10, 2020
And @ringprince2 reiterated, “No to historical revisionism. We have been through so much. Never forget.”
No to historical revisionism… We have been through so much. Never forget.#ArawNgMagnanakaw
— ringprince (@ringprince2) September 11, 2020
All sarcastic tweets aside, and just to jog your memory, the Presidential Commission on Good Governance — which was created for the sole reason of recovering “ill-gotten funds” allegedly pilfered by the Marcos family from the country’s coffers — has recovered more than PHP170 billion (US$3.5 billion) from the Marcos couple’s private Swiss bank accounts. This is on top of four buildings in the U.S. that Ferdinand reportedly gifted Imelda, which amounted to US$300 million, and several civil cases lodged at the Sandiganbayan, which attempted to recover billions of pesos that the Marcoses allegedly stole from Filipinos.
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