Student leaders from UP, Mapua don’t want Marcoses inside their schools

MANILA, Philippines — Student leaders from the University of the Philippines and Mapua University want to bar the widow and children of late dictator Ferdinand Marcos Sr. from entering their campuses.

Student council members of UP and Mapua—both known for their history of activism—along with groups Youth Resist and Akbayan Youth signed a resolution Thursday declaring Marcos' wife, Imelda, along with their children Imee, Bongbong and Irene persona non grata in their schools.

The visits of Imee, now a senator, in 2018 for a Kabataang Barangay reunion in UP and Irene to UP and Ateneo this year prompted the resolution. 

The said the ban is due to the atrocities committed against students during the bloody implementation of Martial Law. 

Archimedes Trajano, then a 21-year-old Mapua student, was killed in 1977 after he questioned Imee’s capability to lead the youth as KB head as well as her father’s role in human rights violations at the time.

“The Marcoses are largely responsible for the corrupted democratic institutions and traditions that we have now," Youth Resist spokesperson Gladys Millioga said in a release posted on the group’s Facebook page. 

She added: “We hope that this joint resolution will inspire more young people to come out and take a stand against the Marcoses.” 

Imee, the eldest of the Marcos children, shrugged off the ban on Friday. 

“Hay naku, day. Dedma na. Nakailang dekada na,” she told Senate reporters. 

According to the estimates of Amnesty International, about 7,000 were imprisoned, 34,000 were tortured and 3,240 were killed during Martial Law—considered as one of the darkest times in the country.