A video made inaccurate claims about roles played by former president Ferdinand Marcos Sr. and former senator Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr. in Philippine history.
Posted by pro-Marcos vlogger Alona Villamin Sekiguchi on Aug. 8, the video claimed that:
- Aquino was one of the masterminds of the 1971 Plaza Miranda bombing, and
- Marcos was responsible for the peaceful outcome of the 1986 EDSA People Power revolution.
VERA Files Fact Check addresses the claim below:
On Aquino’s alleged involvement in the Plaza Miranda bombing
There is no basis to prove that Aquino was one of the masterminds of the Aug. 21, 1971 Plaza Miranda bombing. Aquino was on his way to the venue when three grenades exploded, killing nine and wounding 100 more, wrote American scholar Joseph Scalice in his 2017 dissertation, citing a Sept. 3, 1971 issue of the now-defunct Asia-Philippines Leader magazine.
To this day, it remains unclear who ordered the bombing. Historian Ambeth Ocampo said that at the time, there was a blame game: “[T]he Liberal Party blamed Marcos. The [Communist Party of the Philippines] blamed Marcos. Marcos blamed the CPP,” he wrote in an October 2022 piece on Inquirer.net.
Scalice and a 1989 Washington Post report suggest that based on available evidence, CPP and its former leader, Jose Maria “Joma” Sison, were responsible for the bombing.
Sison repeatedly denied these claims, saying there was no evidence proving that Aquino or anyone in the CPP were behind the attack.
ONE News debunked the same claim before.
On Marcos’ role on the ‘peaceful’ EDSA Revolution
The four-minute video also claimed that the EDSA People Power revolution became peaceful because the ousted dictator Marcos did not order soldiers to fire at the crowd that gathered at Camp Crame. This needs context, as VERA Files Fact Check previously debunked.
“The order from Malacañang to rain bullets on protesters is verified,” the UP Third World Studies Center (UP TWSC) said in its Twitter account (a.k.a X). While Marcos did say on national television not to shoot at civilians, records show he actually issued a “kill order” to attack Camp Crame.
(Read the full story here: Marcos’ order not to shoot at civilians at EDSA NEEDS CONTEXT)
The misleading video, which got over 44,602 interactions, appeared a week after former senator Kiko Pangilinan said the late president Cory Aquino is considered as a mother of Philippine democracy. It continued to circulate on social media over a month after it was published.
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