Albay 1st District Representative Edcel Lagman on Saturday said he is accepting President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s offer of reconciliation but on one condition.
Lagman, who is known to be blunt about his stance against the Marcos family, stressed that “truth and atonement are preconditions to reconciliation.”
“On the 37th anniversary of EDSA, we welcome President Marcos Jr.’s offer of reconciliation but there must first be an admission of the inordinate atrocities and rampant human rights violations during the dark age of martial law,” he said in a statement.
He issued the remarks after Marcos Jr. offered reconciliation to “those with different political persuasions” as the country commemorates the 37th anniversary of the 1986 EDSA People Power Revolution.
Lagman, who now sits as the president of the Liberal Party, is among the political figures who have been vocal being an anti-Marcos activist.
His brother Hermon, a political activist, disappeared during the martial law government of former strongman Marcos.
In 2016, he was among the petitioners who filed cases seeking to stop Marcos Sr.’s burial at the Libingan ng mga Bayani.
Marcos Sr., who clung to power for more than 20 years, placed the country under martial law from 1972 to 1981.
During that period, more than 3,000 Filipinos were killed; 34,000 people were tortured; and around 70,000 people were imprisoned without warrants of arrest, according to international human rights group Amnesty International.