MANILA - President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Tuesday denied allegations that his family has been trying to revise history to clean their image following his father's decades-long dictatorship that was marred with rampant corruption and human rights abuses.

“There’s no reason to revise history,” Marcos said in a taped interview aired on ALLTV channel on his 65th birthday.

“We recognize naman the problems that happened, the abuses that occurred like in any war. All of these things are some things that are already part of history,” he said.

In May 2022, analysts from Agence France-Presse said Marcos Jr. has been the biggest beneficiary of misinformation that has portrayed his family in a favorable light.

Marcos and his family have also been accused of trying to tilt history in their favor through book revisions and movie propaganda.

The President denied the allegations, saying that he would only order the revision of text books “if they’re wrong.”

“Factual naman eh. You can check facts. Let’s talk about facts, not political opinion,” he said.

“We have video, we have photographs, we have records,” he said.

When asked how he feels about being described as “the dictator’s son”, Marcos Jr. said: “I know they’re wrong.”

“How many times have I been here in this room where he was in consultation with different groups? Ang diktador hindi nagkokonsulta,” he claimed.

“So there was more consultation in his time than there have been in many following administrations,” he said.

“In fact, I would venture to say in most of the following administrations to my dad there was less consultation with groups, ordinary people, farmer groups, for example, than in my father’s time,” he said.

Marcos claimed their family was portrayed as villains in Philippine politics for several decades because “victors write history.”

“It is the victors in a conflict that will write the history. The government fell. So the victors wrote this history,” he said.

“And that’s what you were — that’s what is being taught in school and that’s what you heard and learned,” he said.

Marcos Jr. defended his father’s declaration of martial law and other policies, saying “reasons were expounded at great length during my father’s time.”

“Pero siyempre, nag-polarize na eh. So ‘yung kalaban, sila ang sumusulat ngayon ng history. Ayan ang nangyari, kaya ganyan ang natutunan ng tao,” he said.

Thousands of Filipinos have been recognized by courts as victims of rape, kidnapping, torture, and military abuse during Marcos Sr.’s regime.

The Marcos family has yet to apologize for these abuses. Marcos Jr. earlier said that he could only apologize for himself.