KIKO PUSHES FOR PASSAGE OF BILL PROVIDING COMPENSATION TO MARTIAL LAW VICTIMS

Recognizing that "forgetfulness" is oftentimes the vice of most Filipinos, lawmakers are rushing to pass a law that seeks to institutionalize remembrance of a dark chapter in the nation's recent history and correct the errors made during that time "so it may hopefully, never happen again."

Senate Bill No. 1532 or An Act Providing Compensation to Victims of Human Rights Violations During the Marcos Regime, Documentation of Said Violations, Appropriating Funds Therefor, and for Other Purposes," has been approved on second reading last November 21, 2007.

Majority Leader and Independent Senator Kiko Pangilinan, who was the principal sponsor of the measure in the 12 th Congress as then Chairperson of the Committee on Justice and Human Rights, urged his colleagues to support the bill especially since a law that requires compensation to the victims of human rights violations during the Marcos regime is "long overdue and should be approved as soon as possible."

"In fact, until today, thousands of victims of torture, warrantless arrests, summary executions, forced exiles and State enforced disappearances during the dark days of the Marcos dictatorship continue to cry for justice. The physical wounds may have healed, but they and their families are still nursing the wounds of injustice that they continue to suffer because of the government's persistent failure to give them any reparation for their pain and their loss. Hopefully, with the passage of SBN 1532, we'll be able to rectify whatever errors or omissions history has done against them," said Kiko, himself a former student leader and activist under the Marcos regime.

Aside from indemnifying the human rights victims during the Martial Law era, the bill also seeks to "tell the truth about that part of Filipino history" by officially documenting the history of human rights violations under the Marcos regime and directing "the CHR, the PCGG the National Historical Institute (NHI) and the University of the Philippines (UP) to submit a report to the President, to Congress and to the Supreme Court."

"We may be a race with fleeting memory. But we are also a race that knows how to express gratitude, especially to those who have fought for our freedom, displayed heroism by struggling against the dictatorship and sacrificing even their personal freedoms and ambitions, so that we may have a better life, so that we are able to live freely and without fear," said Kiko.

"This is a closure of sorts and in a sense having completed the unfinished business, we can now move on and fight the battles of today with greater resolve and relentlessness."