With Bam’s senatorial run, the Marcos-Aquino story continues

COMPOSITE IMAGE: Benigno Simeon Aquino Jr., Benigno Simeon Aquino III, Maria Corazon Cojuangco-Aquino,  Paolo Benigno Aquino IV, Ferdinand Emmanuel Marcos Sr., Maria Imelda Marocs, and Ferdinand Marcos Jr. INQUIRER file photos, Senate PRIB, and Official Facebook page of Bam Aquino

MANILA, Philippines – “Are you ready to work with a ‘Marcos’?”

The question hounded former senator Bam Aquino since he formalized his bid for a Senate comeback.

Should he win, Aquino would sit as senator with Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr as sitting president, yet another encounter between the Aquino and Marcos clans which have shared a long yet estranged political history.

“This is probably the tenth time I’m asked this question,” Aquino, laughing, said in an exclusive interview on INQUIRER.net’s online program INQside Look on October 15.

Nearly four decades since former senator Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr.’s assassination, the Marcos-Aquino story seems to be far from over.

President Marcos-Senator Aquino; President Aquino-Senator Marcos

According to Bam, he is ready to work with President Bongbong, especially if it would help the Filipino people.

After all, if he wins, Bam said this will not be the first time that an Aquino would sit as senator in a Marcos administration..

“Here’s the thing, if we look back at history, it’s a common occurrence. There was a [President] Marcos Sr and Senator Ninoy Aquino before martial law and of course Tito Ninoy was in jail during most of martial law,” Bam said.

“When [Noynoy] was president, there was Senator Bongbong Marcos and they also had a working relationship back then,” Bam added.

Bam is nephew of the late senator Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr., a staunch critic of Bongbong’s father, former president Ferdinand Marcos Sr.

Ninoy was senator from 1967 to 1972, with Marcos Sr. as sitting president.

A staunch critic of Marcos Sr., Ninoy was supposed to end his senatorial term in 1973. However, it was cut short when Marcos Sr declared martial law.

Ninoy, who became a leading opposition figure against Marcos Sr, was murdered on August 21,1983 at the then Manila International Airport upon his return from exile in the United States–an event that sparked massive demonstrations that culminated in the People Power Revolution in 1986 that ousted the elder Marcos from the presidency.

Marcos Sr. was replaced by Ninoy’s wife, Cory.

More than two decades later, Ninoy’s son, Benigno Simeon “Noynoy” Aquino III, was elected as the Philippines’ 15th president.

In the same elections, Bongbong was elected senator.

A ‘Marcos’ was sitting as a senator in an Aquino government.

Now-senator Imee Marcos, daughter of Marcos Sr., was also elected as governor of Ilocos Norte in 2010, also under an Aquino administration.

“Everytime I text him [President Noynoy] when our province is in desperate need of help due to typhoons, he’s quick to respond,” Imee said in an ambush interview with reporters in 2014.

Noynoy and Imee were also a part of the minority bloc in the House of Representatives when they were still congressmen back in 2007.

“I will always treasure the memories of our long years together as freshmen legislators and members of a tiny opposition. For beyond politics and much public acrimony, I knew Noynoy as a kind and simple soul. He will be deeply missed,” Imee said in a statement following Noynoy’s death in 2021.

If Bam wins in next year’s senatorial race, this will not be the first time that he will work with Bongbong either.

Bam and Bongbong were members of the 16th Congress from 2013 to 2016 as senators.

“President Bongbong and I, we have worked on laws together. In fact, the Sangguniang Kabataan Reform Act was born out of our partnership. He was the chairman of the Senate committee of local government while I was the chairman of the committee on youth and the SK Reform Act was covered by our committees,” Bam tells INQUIRER.net in an INQside Look interview on October 15.

“We worked on that law together despite our historical differences, as well as differences on our positions on many issues,” he said.

History follows the present

History will always be a part of the present–and it has followed the younger Marcoses and Aquinos.

In 2019, Bam and Imee–who were both vying for a Senate seat at that time–were invited for a joint interview by radio station dzMM. During the interview, they were asked to say “one thing that the Marcos and Aquino regime did well for the Filipino people.”

“For us in Ilocos, Noynoy really helped us. Every time there was a typhoon, I used to call him and he would send help,” Imee, in Filipino, said.

“During the Marcos regime, to be fair, their technocrats were really handpicked and competent. A lot of them–before the Marcos time, during the Marcos time, and even after–stayed in government and were really competent in planning during that time,” Bam said in Filipino.

The issue of martial law also followed Bongbong not only during his campaign for presidency in 2022, but even today as the sitting president.

In April 2024, Bongbong said it is not his duty to be involved when asked to apologize to victims of martial law under Marcos Sr.’s regime.

Martial law was declared on Sept. 23, 1972 by Marcos Sr. to quell what he then said was growing threats from the Maoist insurgents and Islamic separatists.

At least 70,000 people were wrongly imprisoned and 3,200 were killed during martial law, according to Amnesty International.

“I don’t think it’s a duty for a president to be involved, that is a personal matter for the Marcos family,” Bongbong Marcos said at the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines forum when asked if he’s going to issue an apology on behalf of his father.

When pressed further since he was a member of the Marcos family, Bongbong said: “Definitely. But my role as president is more important right now than my role as a member of the Marcos family. So, I take that, that’s my first priority.”

In prior interviews, however, Bongbong also defended his late father’s imposition of martial law when in power, saying it was necessary because he was simultaneously fighting communist and separatist rebellions at that time.

“Martial law was declared because of the wars, the two wars we were fighting on two fronts,” Marcos Jr said in 2022 in his first interview since his landslide victory.

It’s not just the Marcoses who were hounded by history, though.

Even at the tailend of his presidency in 2016, Noynoy was asked about the popularity of the Marcoses despite their mark on history. Back then, a frontrunner Bongbong was running for vice president.

“When he (Bongbong) became the frontrunner in the surveys, that to me seemed to be such an impossibility but then again, when you look at it in an objective manner… those opposed to him were fragmented, number one,” Noynoy had told Rappler.

“Number two, perhaps we should have paid more attention to the long-running campaign, the revisionist view of history… perhaps we should have paid more attention to those 30 years after EDSA [People Power]. There is a new generation that never experienced what martial law was,” he added.

Even the next generation of Aquino in politics, Bam, continued to get questions regarding readiness to work with a Marcos should he get elected.

No historical revisionism

Despite his declared readiness to work with Bongbong for the Filipino people, Bam said there should be no room for historical revisionism.

“My track record regarding that (going against historical revisionism) has been very clear and hopefully, if Senator Kiko [Pangilinan] is with me, and Senator Risa [Hontiveros] is already there, our fight against historical revisionism remains strong,” Bam said in the INQside Look interview.

According to Bam, there are different factions within the administration–some want to change the course of history, while some want to leave it as is.

“If there are moves to change the history, I will be the first one to fight against it and it’s clear for me ever since, and now, and in the future,” Bam says.

In 2023, Bongbong released Proclamation No. 368, which listed official national holidays, non-working days, and special non-working days for 2024. Unlike years prior, Edsa People Power Anniversary, which the nation celebrates on February 25, was not on the list.

Earlier this year, Bongbong also moved the observance of Ninoy Aquino Day from August 21 (Wednesday) to August 23 (Friday), citing holiday economics–a move that critics viewed as a way to rewrite history.

“The day that Ninoy Aquino died is August 21, not another date. We want to commemorate these important dates at the right times and at the right dates also,” Bam said.

When we talk about the Marcoses, it’s hard not to talk about the Aquinos and vice versa–and in the middle of this story are the Filipino people.

Now it’s up to Filipinos how the story progresses; what tomorrow–which one day will be history, too–would look like.