My friend confronts atrocities committed by her father, a general, under Martial Law

What do you do if your father was a general under a ruthless dictator, who was responsible for torturing and disappearing people? My friend is the daughter of General Fabian Ver, the right hand man of Ferdinand Marcos Sr, dictator of the Philippines, for over twenty years.

Growing up, Wanna was protected from the sins of her father by believing the propaganda that the martial rule of Marcos was necessary (to combat poverty and communism) and was ushering in a Golden Age.

Following the People Uprising, in 1986, Wanna was forced to flee the Philippines as a child and to grapple over the coming decades with the difficult truths about her father/lies she believed.

Today, Wanna, is bravely speaking out, and apologizing to the victims of Marcos dictatorship and her father's crimes.

Wanna Ver is doing her best to try and atone for this dark legacy as the co-founder of Kapwa Pilipinas, an organization focused on cultivating reconciliation for the survivors of martial law under the Marcos dictatorship.

For victims to be heard and receive a heartfelt apology is a noble way to atone for the sins of one's family and make sense of/own this unfortunate legacy, while paradoxically also beginning to unburden ones and separate/liberate one's name from family name.

I think this is, also, true on personal level. As victims of abuse, Sorry is everything. That's when true healing can begin..

Below, are excerpts from an Oped that Wanna wrote, which she was kind enough to share with me, in progress:

I had been raised believing my father was bringing our country into a golden age, but all I found in my research was a brutal dictatorship. It was a stalemate, a crisis, my own “dark night of the soul” ...

My father belongs to history as much as he belongs to me...

I am the face of the Brutal Dictatorship listening to their accounts of what occurred, their witness...

If the daughter of General Ver is here listening, apologizing, maybe there is some hope for the Philippines after all

Our deeply Catholic country knows that the Sacrament of Penance and the process of forgiveness can occur only after confession
...
If not me, then who? And if not now, when?"