Bien Ong, Realtor

Did the world's leaders boycott Marcos's UN talk?

Did the leaders of the nations boycott the UN talk of Marcos? The assembly was almost empty. As a Filipino, even as I am a Marcos critic, I felt a sadness for him and for our country. And as a fellow human being, even as I abhor what his family has done to the country, I felt a sincere empathy for him His lone figure standing at the podium, in an empty hall made me cringe at all the feelings of embarrassment, humiliation, disempowerment that must have overwhelmed him.

But if it is nothing else but a moment of reckoning for him, may he come to a realization that he may delude millions of Filipinos who give him blind loyalty, but he cannot overcome the world's opinion of him and his family, and the legacy of plunder and human rights violations that is attached to the Marcos name.

The International Observers of Elections from the United Nations has concluded that he and Duterte were voted to power in a fraud-ridden elections, through massive cheating, including the use of machines that could have stolen the elections from the Filipino people. They stated: "The gov't failed the Filipino people."

So there he stood, the son of the world- renowned plunderer, and the architect of the martial law regime, facing the world's muted rejection, reverberating in the cold silence of an empty hall.

TINA A. ASTORGA

Party

Madjong pamore