A foundation for Martial Law victims reprinted a book about recovering the Marcos family’s ill-gotten wealth to raise funds.
The Bantayog ng mga Bayani Foundation promoted on Facebook Jovito Salonga‘s book “Presidential Plunder: The Quest for the Marcos Ill-Gotten Wealth” to potential new customers.
“The book reads like crime fiction, but it’s not. It’s a real life story of the discovery and then the chase for wealth that had been massively stolen then scrupulously hidden. It’s about the victories and failures of that chase,” the post reads.
“Read Presidential Plunder and discover how the Marcoses did it for decades, how they fought against having to give it up, and how the Filipino people won back some but also lost some of the billions that had been systematically looted from them,” the foundation described the book.
Salonga is one of the major opposition leaders during the Marcos dictatorship.
He later became the first chairman of the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG), a government agency in charge of recovering the Marcos family’s ill-gotten wealth.
Bantayog is offering Salonga’s book for P150. Interested buyers can purchase it via an order form.
Historian Kristoffer Pasion also promoted the book on Twitter.
“If you don’t have a copy yet, make sure you get one from @bantayogbayani. Senate President Jovito Salonga was the one who wrote this masterpiece. Bantayog reprinted it for its fundraising of the foundation. It’s only 150.00,” Pasion tweeted.
If you don’t have a copy yet, make sure you get one from .@bantayogbayani. Senate President Jovito Salonga was the one who wrote this masterpiece. Bantayog reprinted it for its fundraising of the foundation. It’s only 150.00.
Click this link to order: https://t.co/wRNSCuJmMg pic.twitter.com/jG4j0cYkas
— Kristoffer Pasion (@indiohistorian) June 6, 2022
Under his tweet, Pasion urged his followers to purchase the book directly from the foundation to support them.
“I’m aware that there are many sellers of the book on FB. I encourage you to buy DIRECTLY from Bantayog ng mga Bayani Foundation to support their work. They really need our support,” he said.
State of the Bantayog
The Bantayog was recently featured in an article by The New York Times, a prestigious US-based publication, titled “The Museum Was Built So No One Would Forget. Now it’s Falling Apart.”
The report bared the dilapidated state of the museum building.
“The building is now mostly in disrepair, damaged by Typhoon Ulysses in 2020 and closed for more than two years because of the coronavirus pandemic before reopening in February,” the author Sui-Lee Wee wrote.
May Rodriguez, the executive director of the museum, told the New York Times that the shortage of funds is currently the organization’s biggest problem.
With enough funds, Rodriguez shared that they plan to make Bantayog more interactive with video clips for visitors.
“When they come into the museum, I want them to understand that the last two or three years — maybe even longer — has been a battle for truth and lies,” she was quoted in the report as saying.
