A day after his half-brother told Filipinos to “move on” from Martial Law issues, actor Jake Ejercito shared a scene from the movie adaptation of the mystery novel “Smaller and Smaller Circles” on Twitter.
The actor on Wednesday shared a collated picture showing stills of Sid Lucero‘s character in the movie who was talking to his students.
Sid played the role of Father Jerome Lucero, a Jesuit priest who is also a history teacher.
Jake shared stills where the character was seen mentioning the historic People Power Revolution, also known as EDSA Revolution.
“Nakalimutan kasi ng marami kung gaanon karaming dugo ang dinanak ng mga mamamayan natin bago tayo umabot sa EDSA. Time and forgetfulness are the allies of abusers,” Sid’s character said.
Jake captioned his post with “#NeverForget,” a phrase most often associated with calls to reject historical revisionism and attempts to forget or sanitize Martial Law declared by former president Ferdinand Marcos Sr.
#NeverForget pic.twitter.com/kwEyIYLpK1
— Jake Ejercito (@unoemilio) September 21, 2022
He tweeted it on the 50th anniversary of Martial Law declaration.
The post has earned 21,400 likes and over 7,700 retweets as of this writing. It also impressed some Twitter users who claimed Jake is the only Ejercito that they “respect.”
“The only Ejercito that have my sincere respect. Salamat sa pagtindig,” a Filipino commented to his post with clapping emojis.
“Buti pa si Jake,” another Twitter user said.
“Pakisabi sa kuya mo po,” a different Pinoy commented, referring to Sen. Jinggoy Estrada.
The lawmaker and the actor are related to each other through their father, former president Erap Estrada.
‘Move on’
Jinggoy, on the eve of the 50th anniversary of Martial Law’s declaration, said that Filipinos should “move on” from the issue.
“What is there to apologize [for]? President Marcos has already given his statement with regard to Martial Law. Let’s move on already,” he said in a press conference on Tuesday.
“Imagine, President Marcos got the highest number of votes in history — 31 million. Isn’t that enough? Let’s just move on,” Jinggoy added.
Jinggoy said that he thinks more people do not believe in Martial Law’s dark past following the number of people that voted for Marcos Jr.
However, the senator added that human rights victims should be given the right to air their grievances.
The past
Martial Law was imposed from 1972 to 1981 in a bid to supposedly quell communist insurgency and restore order, but critics said it was declared to extend Marcos Sr’s presidential term.
The nine-year period saw curfews being imposed, public assemblies being forbidden and the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, a legal remedy that protects citizens from unlawful arrests and indefinite detentions.
It also saw the curtailment of civil rights and liberties, prevalence of extrajudicial killings and unsolved disappearances, media suppression and economic recession, among others.
London-based human rights organization Amnesty Organization said that “some 70,000 people were imprisoned and 34,000 were tortured; over 3,200 people were killed” when the country was placed under this rule.
