Understanding the Unforeseen Consequences of an Incomplete Transitional Justice Ecology in the Philippines

Abstract

The Philippines is not typically the focus of transitional justice (TJ) scholarship. Yet, it has had to deal with violent legacies pertaining to each generation of TJ and has installed several TJ initiatives in response to this. This has given rise to a densely populated TJ landscape, spanning different periods and regions and including both formal and informal initiatives within various TJ pillars. In spite of this plethora of initiatives, the Philippines can hardly be called a ‘successful’ case of dealing with violent legacies – with the recent election of Bongbong Marcos as the most striking example thereof. In this article I argue that this can be understood in light of the absence of a genuine TJ ecology: there has not been an encompassing approach in which various kinds of initiatives interact with each other based on intersecting normative objectives. I argue that the case of the Philippines holds broader lessons regarding the importance of a more ecological understanding of TJ.

“The Truthfulness Lies in the Process, Not the Outcome” Using Artistic Practices to Further Truth-Telling and Memorialization in the Philippines

“…To the extent that truth-seeking took place in the immediate post-Marcos period, it was part of the work of institutions like the Philippine National Historical Commission (a permanent body with no specific truth mandate), the Presidential Commission on Good Governance (that was mandated to locate and retrieve laundered money) (Carranza 2008) or the Presidential Commission on Human Rights (which morphed into a standing Commission on Human Rights before concluding its report) (Mendoza 2013), or of prosecutions of the Marcoses that took place in the US (Davidson 2017), or, much later, the Supreme Court hearing regarding Marcos' reburial on the Cemetery of Heroes and Martyrs (Destrooper 2023). While carrying out important documentary work, none of these instances had the formal objectives of truth mechanisms, such as reconciliation, cementing state-sanctioned narratives about past violence, or reaching out to broad audiences.…”