MikeLigalig.com

Good morning. Before I begin, let me tell you a personal story.

This building, once upon a time, was where I first met Imee Marcos. She was the main actor in a Tagalog version of Animal Farm directed by Prof. Jonas Sebastian. And I was the play’s stage manager.

I recall that Jonas had to change some of her lines because these would hit too close to home. Because Animal Farm was about a revolution that went bad. Just like what was then happening with Marcos’ “Revolution from the Center.”
Well, Marcos was overthrown. And slowly, succeeding governments turned into versions of Animal Farm.

Today, the Marcoses are back, and behaving as if the 1986 Edsa People Power Revolution never happened.

A growing number of Filipinos – many of them born after EDSA – are even hoping to put Senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos in Malacañang Palace two years from now.

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Let me offer two three reasons.

ONE – The foremost reason is that the generation that overthrew the Marcos conjugal dictatorship thought that the regime was so brutal and so greedy in its accumulation of wealth and power, that people did not need further reminding of it.

The People Power generation forgot to document all these for future generations.

Sure, Nick Joaquin came out with the book Quarter of the Tiger Moon. And there was that coffee table book on People Power.

But to this day, the History of the Filipino People written by UP historians Teodoro Agoncillo and Milagros Guerrero – which a lot of schools continue to use as their history textbooks – has not been updated to include the Marcos years and the years afterward.

Consequently, the succeeding generations really have no idea why si Malakas at si Maganda – the Powerful and the Beautiful – that was the myth propagated by the Marcos couple about themselves – are really si Marahas at si Mapurot.

In Waray, “mapurot” means ugly and undesirable.

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In the absence of an extensive history covering the Marcos regime, the Marcos family was able to hawk the following myths to new voters:

1.That Martial law was a “benevolent dictatorship”

2.That there were no human rights abuses during the period. As Senator Bongbong Marcos said, the alleged victims are only after money.

3.That the economy boomed under Marcos

4.That Marcos was the greatest president since he built the most number of infrastructure, notably the Cultural Center, Folk Arts Theater, Film Center, Heart Center, Kidney Center, Lung Center and San Juanico Bridge. You can see this particular claim all over the social networking sites Facebook and Youtube.

I’ll take these up now one by one.

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It was really only after the Marcoses fell that Filipinos got to know the full horror of his New Society. There were at least 10,000 human rights victims who were killed, or were tortured and survived.

Just to give a rough calculation of how bad the human rights situation was and the extent of dissent against his New Society – for every month that Marcos held on as a dictator while his wife, Human Settlements Minister Imelda Marcos, indulged in shopping sprees abroad, 700 human rights victims would be added to the roster.

Or for each day he was in power as dictator, there were 23 new victims. Or almost every hour of the 14 years he remained a dictator, nearly one citizen was killed or tortured.

Even the beautiful Governor of Ilocos Norte, Imee Marcos, has blood on her hands. A student from Mapua named Archimedes Trajano once questioned her – whether the daughter of the President had to head the Kabataang Barangay.

Trajano was later found dead. Investigators claimed he died in a frat rumble.

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Every time that happened, my mother had to take it out of our food budget. I remember there were times that we were able to eat only because a customer of my mom, who sewed dresses, would suddenly pay her.

And so, even though I wasn’t an activist, I knew first-hand the consequences of dissent against Marcos.

And that’s not all. Marcos and his in-laws, the Romualdezes, had nearly total control of Philippine media – the TV, Radio and newspapers.

The Marcos-Romualdez-controlled media did not show the true extent of the Mindanao wars – the wars when Nur Misuari, Hashim Salamat and Murad Ebrahim fought as one under the banner of the Moro National Liberation Front.

An estimated 60,000 to 80,000 civilians and rebels died in Mindanao between 1972 and 1976. Over one million residents fled.

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Marcos redrew the southern Philippine map, wrenched Palawan away from Mindanao, partitioned the south, and gave these to his various military commanders to govern.

Marcos’ actions in Mindanao and the ignorance of the people of Luzon about these, would fuel mistrust between the two populations and add to the misunderstanding of why the Muslim south wants autonomy.

Let me go now to Marcos’ “achievements” during Martial Law. It is true that he built those buildings and that bridge in the 20 years he was in power – from December 30, 1965 to February 25, 1986.

But at what cost? And how much was his commission? His tongpats?

When he became president in 1965, the Philippine foreign debt was less than US$1 billion. By the time he and his family fled, this had ballooned to US$27 billion – a nearly US$26 billion increase. That’s over US$1 billion per year.

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On top of that, there is the grinding poverty symbolized by Manila’s Smokey Mountain and the export of Filipinos as slave labor to the Middle East.

Please consider this: According to the 2003 judgment issued by former Supreme Court chief Justice Renato Corona on Civil Case 0141 or the civil forfeiture case against the Marcoses’ Net Worth was US$957,487.75 or under ONE MILLION DOLLARS when they fled in 1986.

So how do the Marcoses even account for the US$356 million which the Swiss government unilaterally froze in 1986 and later gave back to the Philippine government with interest?

In addition, how does Imelda Marcos account for her three jewelry collections worth a combined US$4 million? Last month, one collection was awarded to the Philippine government. But last week, Senator Bongbong Marcos submitted an appeal to have the decision reversed, saying the government never specified this particular collection in its forfeiture suit.

He also said a curious thing last week – he said Pres. Benigno Aquino should apologize for the botched rescue of Hongkongers who were taken hostage in a tourist bus in 2010. He said, “the refusal to apologize I find hard to understand.”

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The public does remember Imelda Marcos’ jewelry but in the wrong context. The jewelry projects her as a patroness of the arts and a lover of “the true, the good, and the beautiful.” It does not remember her as the shopaholic who diverted for her own pleasure the tax money that should have helped the poor.

For Marcos lovers like Irene Vinluan, such displays of corrupt practices apparently does not matter. She wrote on the Facebook page of Marcos’ daughter, Imee:

“I love the Marcoses! During the time of his Presidency, despite of his corruption, at the same time, he also did good for the country, the streets was cleaner, not much street crimes, the Philippines was one of the richest in Asia.”

Let’s replace the word “Marcos” with Hitler; and use Germany instead of the Philippines, and see how that reads:

“I love Hitler! During the time of his Chancellorship, despite of his corruption, at the same time, he also did good for the country, the streets was cleaner, not much street crimes, Germany was one of the richest in Europe.”

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TWO – Another reason why we have this serious memory gap about the Marcoses’ evil deeds is that they and their supporters are exploiting certain cultural norms and Filipino values to help them propagate their own version of reality.

Here are four such norms:

The first norm is – Respect your elder.

Ferdinand Marcos exploited this by calling himself “Apo”, which in Ilocano means “elder person in authority.”

And Imelda Marcos, no matter how foolish she sounds and how much in debt she sunk the Philippine treasury because of her wanton shopping sprees, is still accorded similar respect because she’s old.

One of the things I vividly remember the day after the Marcoses fled was my visit inside Malacanang Palace. As a political reporter for Business Day newspaper, I was able to get inside the palace and I could go anywhere.

Bea Zobel, wife of Jaime Zobel and and her friend Mercy Tuazon were both inside helping to tally up the goods that had been left behind.

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When Ferdinand Marcos died in 1989, his family and supporters exploited a second cultural norm: Do not speak ill of the dead.

This one goes against the very writing of history. I understand that the history major in UP is now an endangered specie. This is crazy. This is sad. This is pathetic. A nation cannot move forward without drawing lessons from its past.

I salute those who continue writing history despite financial challenges.

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The fourth cultural norm has very serious implications for the country’s future. And this is – Do not bring the sins of the father on his children.

Even the left-wing activist, former Congressman Satur Ocampo, justified Bayan Muna’s strange political alliance with Bongbong Marcos in 2010 using this very argument. Ocampo said, “We are not collecting from the son.”

But the son has long been in cahoots with his father and mother. He early on tried to get someone to withdraw the stash from Switzerland. In fact the son is now the legal executor of his father’s estate. And long before that, the son was one of the named beneficiaries of the US$356 million Swiss bank accounts.

You see, the Marcoses’ secret Swiss accounts were all under pseudonyms. But the Marcos couple had to sign separate documents saying they owned these accounts. They also had to sign another set of papers naming their beneficiaries in case they died.

In February 2011, I was lucky enough to be seated at the same luncheon table as Senator Bongbong Marcos during a press conference of the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines. I was also able to ask him questions.

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Understandably, the dictator’s children are trying to reinstate their father politically.

But they are doing it with our tax money.

For instance, many key activities of Governor Imee Marcos for Ilocos Norte is intended to praise her father Ferdinand Marcos. Last year, she held the:

1. “President Marcos cup” for practical shooting;
2. A rock concert called “DaReal Makoy Concert 2”;
3. A “Marcos fiesta 2013 Flash Mob Full” which details the life of Marcos in dance; and
4. “The First Ferdinand Marcos Sirib Intercollegiate debates 2013.”

September 11, Marcos’ birthday, was dubbed “Marcos Day”.

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The Marcoses are now using Facebook and YouTube to project their father as the greatest president this country ever had.

HOW ATTITUDE TO THE MARCOSES HAD CHANGED

The Social Weather Stations has tried tracking public sentiment regarding Ferdinand Marcos. By 1998, 12 years after he was booted out, SWS took a poll and compared it with previous similar polls it had taken.

SWS said it found the following:

On the statement that Marcos was a “thief of the nation’s wealth”, public opinion “shifted from unfavorable in 1986 to neutral in 1995 and 1998.”
On the statement that he was a “brutal and oppressive president”, public sentiment shifted “from a split opinion in 1986 to a favorable opinion in 1995 and 1998.”

On the statement that Imelda Marcos was definitely guilty or not guilty of graft, SWS found that half thought she was “definitely guilty” and only 14% said she wasn’t.

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But what about keeping a historical truth constant? Making sure the truth survives generations?

By 2011, Ferdinand Marcos had made a remarkable comeback in public consciousness. When SWS asked respondents to identify their “top three most identified Filipino heroes,” Jose Rizal, Andres Bonifacio and Ninoy Aquino topped the list in that order.

However, Marcos even made the list – cited by 5.1% of respondents. One could say that is the loyal Ilocano vote at work. However, he even bested Ramon Magsaysay and Lapu-Lapu.

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Associate Justice Artemio Panganiban who penned the decision wrote then that:

“The waiver of all claims against the Marcoses would be a virtual warrant for all public officials to amass public funds illegally, since there is an option to compromise their liabilities in exchange for only a portion of their ill-gotten wealth.”

That is the message of Marcos to all politicians, actually. If you must steal, steal big.

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Besides writing such books, academics can compile – online and offline – a list of credible references about Martial Law. A historiography of Martial law.

And we need to engage the Marcos lovers online, by vigorously challenging their delusions and their attempts to erase history.

The Marcoses destroyed our country and now they are covering up for their crimes.

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This is what I call my “Macky watch.” It’s a gold watch that was given to guests during his birthday celebration in 1977. It was given to me by a dear friend.

The barb wire symbolizes the impunity of the Marcos dictatorship. The watch symbolizes the extravagance, especially of Imelda Marcos.

Remember the Marcos myth – si Malakas at Maganda?

That should be changed to – si Marahas at Mapurot – ugly and undesirable.

http://raissarobles.com/

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