Tag Archives: Marcos

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

I have never believed that any human being was just good or bad. He has and always will be, to me, both. At times, he can be good. Others, bad. He drifts from one to the other based on how he reacts to certain situations. Take Will Smith, for example. Everyone saw him as a “good guy” but then he goes up on stage during the Oscars and slaps Chris Rock. Now, people think the worst of him, and that “good guy” persona was just fiction for the masses. Hollywood glimmer.

Is he good or bad then? I say both. We don’t have to psycho-analyze him to get to that conclusion. Everyone is both good and evil. Even the worst of us can do good. I am sure that for all the horrors that someone like Hitler, Stalin and even Marcos have done, there are those that can, and will say that he was helped by that man, or that the man had been good to him. We are both at the same time. Always.

This is why we struggle through life making decisions every day. We generally just don’t give up and say “well, I’m bad anyway, so I might as well go crazy!” At the same time, imagine yourself eternally trying to be good all the time. It’s exhausting, and the consequences of getting caught doing bad is terrible. Take Ellen DeGeneris for example. She had that “good image” going until the horror stories about how she treated guests and, worse, staff got out. People came out with varying stories: she was good to me; she treated me terribly. Same person. She even made a joke about it how she couldn’t even have a car horn because if someone rudely cuts her in traffic and blasts her horn; people will look and say “Ellen?”

In the end, of course, we know we have to do good and avoid evil. That’s the Catholic thing to do, and I am Catholic: born and raised. But the struggle is real. This is the reason why we invoke the Holy Spirit to come into our lives and lead us because doing good constantly every single day and night is exhausting and we cannot do it without help. Sure, even with constant prayer, we slip and fall but we also get up and carry on. Seeking forgiveness, confessing our shortcomings, and doing penance to keep doing good. That’s it really: don’t be good, do good. Every single day.

My Easter reflection this year.

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Power of the Word

There was a time when every single word that comes from a world leader bore meaning. He or she wouldn’t say something unless he or she understood its implications. There was always a target audience and sound bites were designed or calculated to reach them whether they were the enemy, their countrymen, or simply the world at large.

In the days of Twitter and Facebook, and populism in general, all that has gone out the window. Populist leaders would say what they want, when they want, without regard for how it will impact their country, or just the office in which he sits. You have an American President tweeting to his heart’s delight much to the chagrin of the White House’s communication staff. When they try to do damage control, he comes out and reinforces his original tweet. In fact, he is so tweeter-happy that he even tweets about state secrets. A case of too much truth.

Not only that, he is a believer and/or propagator of conspiracy theories and alternate facts. He will hammer on something as the truth when facts show otherwise. Credibility be damned.

Over at the other side of the Pacific, you have a Philippine President who speaks in public and later tells everyone it was just a joke or a lie. Parenthetically, when people think he was joking, he comes out to assure us that he wasn’t. That makes it difficult for Filipinos, and other nations as well, to read what he is really trying to say and act accordingly.

In both countries, there is now a need for government officials to “explain” what the head of state meant, and where the latter insists on his own interpretation of what he said, then some officials would simply contradict him. That’s a problem for cabinet secretaries who are supposed to be alter egos of the president. They are extensions of the president, and while this is not a problem for some, others soon find themselves out of the government.

To this we can add a tendency towards historical revisionism. No administration is perfect but when the wrongs say of the Marcos regime during the martial law years appear to be glorified, then it tends to belittle the sacrifices and lives lost by a generation who fought those same ills. Of course, this could be expected even as political affiliations swing one way or the other; eventually, a friend of the old regime will surface as president and attempt to rehabilitate them.

We ask: how much of the drug war is real? What about the anti-corruption drive? Can we rely on what they are saying, or is it a lie or just a joke? How is our economy doing? Whose data or what sources can we rely on? What is really going on?

All this reflects badly on their leadership. With people now uncertain of what they mean, or what is real, how are they expected to plan and move forward if they cannot read what their government is trying to do or accomplish? That’s a problem not just for individuals but more so for businesses, investors and other countries. It certainly creates a lot of uncertainty and with it, loss of confidence. While some die-hard believers will carry on regardless, the rest will certainly be a lot more cautious. That caution could hurt the economy and our relationships with our allies, trading partners and neighboring states.

People and nations also tend to dismiss them and their governments. It is strange to see an American president ignored in a meeting of nations but there it was. World leaders have now turned to others for leadership even as the US focuses in on its self. Too much it seems. No one is so naive to think that any of the past US administrations have acted without considering its consequences first on the US yet they have not failed to lead the rest of the world. The current administration is not inclined to do so. It chooses to build a wall both literally and figuratively around it and live in its bubble safe from what it believes to be a climate change hoax. Coaxing it out of its shell and rehabilitating its confidence to lead will take time. Lots of it.

In the end, the victim to all of this is the truth. It’s bad enough that we have to contend with fake news and alternate facts but when leaders consciously actively engage in them, their citizens suffer and the world bears the consequences of their actions. There have been past administrations that have lied but none have done so openly and flagrantly.

Borrowing from the X Files, the truth is now just out there. We cannot trust our own governments. That’s a terrible thing to have to say.

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History in the making

History, as they say, is written by the victors.

Thirty-one years ago, Filipinos gathered on a street called EDSA to protect a couple of coup plotters and their men from the then president of the Republic of the Philippines and his army. They came in response to a call from the then Archbishop of Manila called Cardinal Sin if you can believe it. The rest as they say is history.

Of course, things could have been very different. The order to attack could have been given. An itchy finger could have sparked a firefight. The armored personnel carriers could have breached the thin hollowblock walls of Camp Aguinaldo, and helicopters could have fired upon the people gathered in the streets. Instead, a thin line of rosaries and flowers held back an unstoppable force. Believe what you will but that street is called Epifanio Delos Santos Avenue (epifany of the saints) and it was a moment you can describe as a modern day miracle. You can say it was a moment touched by God.

That moment was not about a dead former senator, or his widow. It was not about their family against another. It was about a dictator and his ouster from power. The revolution itself was unintended. It all started with a coup d’etat that never got off, for intentions we will never know. Then the power of the people took over, and the dictator left or was taken out of the country. Make no mistake, the revolution succeeded. The dictator was gone.

After the victory, when the euphoria has been spent, we realize that we have changed little from where we were 31 years ago and ask, has God abandoned us? The truth is that while God can help us along the way, much of getting where we want to go depends on the decisions we make in every single moment of every single day.

Fast forward to 2017 and, horror of horrors, we find that the wheel has turned 360-degrees. Sitting as president is one who identifies closely with the former president ousted from power 31 years ago. The dictator has been buried in a place for men of honor and honored men. Blood runs in the streets. Policemen are abusing their power, and the government’s critics are being hunted. If history is written by the victors, then the victor in the last presidential election has decided to turn things on its head and rewrite history. There’s anger in the streets, and celebrating the victory that was the EDSA Revolution has taken on a new importance. It has become an inspiration.

True, there is a new victor in the seat of power but history is continuously being written, and if the people persists in the struggle, then perhaps victory can once again be achieved. However the struggle ends, history itself will roll on. What will be written, however, is largely up to us…

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One Man’s Dictator is Another Man’s Hero

Today’s controversy revolves around the question of whether or not the former President of the Republic of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos, should be buried in the Libingan ng mga Bayani (Heroes’ Cemetery). Does it matter where the former president should be interred? Yes, it matters. It matters to those who opposed his martial rule over the Philippines, and it matters to those who supported his presidency. The Libingan is viewed as a place of honor. Is Marcos entitled to a hero’s burial?

Before you get to the point where you have to answer that question, however, it pays to look back on how the country got to this point. 

It all began in 1965 when Marcos was elected the tenth president of the Republic. In 1972, he declared martial law and began his one-man rule over the country. He replaced or displaced oligarchs, long the mainstay of the country’s political and the economic life, with his cronies. He arrested, killed and “disappeared” those that questioned, threatened or opposed his rule. Near the end of his rule, the economy was in tatters with the country asking its creditors for a moratorium on its debt payments. Then that singular event happened: Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino, Jr., one of Marcos’ staunchest adversaries, came home to the Philippines, walked down to the tarmac of the airport that would later bear his name, and was shot dead by members of the security detail tasked with securing his person. The date, August 21, 1983. Thereafter, the people began to openly break away from the Marcos regime so much so that the strongman had to prove he was still in control of the country and called for a “snap” election: him versus anyone the opposition would like to throw at him. On 7 February 1986, Marcos ran against Ninoy’s widow, Corazon “Cory” Aquino, and lost. The Marcoses tried to make it appear that he won and held on to power for a few more days but by then he was so weak that two of his trusted allies, Police Chief, and later, President Fidel Ramos, and then Defense Secretary, later, Senator Juan Ponce Enrile, broke away and tried to conduct a coup. When they were discovered, they holed up in their camps along Epifanio Delos Santos Avenue (EDSA) and the Archbishop of Manila, Cardinal Sin, called on the people to surround and protect them and their men. The people came out in droves, stopped armored personnel carriers with their hands, showered soldiers with flowers and prayers, and won the day. The Marcoses and some of their cronies fled the country and the reigns of power handed to Cory. The triumph of the EDSA Revolution!

It’s a great story but it is not the whole story. Even as people celebrated the defeat of the Marcoses, one has to realize that in all his years in power, many have benefited, some illegally but, certainly, some rightfully, from Marcos’ reign. We cannot discount the fact that he was able to help others while others suffered under his dictatorial rule. They were able to give land and money for medicines and other needs, and enacted laws still in use today. To those they were able to help in one form or another, I am sure that they will have a more forgiving image of the late dictator. To them, he would be a hero.

It does not end there. If the last vice presidential elections showed us anything, then it is that a lot of people still root for the Marcoses regardless of how the rest of the country feels about them. It is for that very reason, I think, that there is still this question now before us. 

Had all these Marcos supporters disappeared in a blink of an eye after the EDSA Revolution, then I think there would have been no question as to what should be done about the body of Marcos now. But, no, a crony was given a passport to return to the country. His widow and children have returned, ran for public office, won, and are again very much entrenched in their bailiwicks, and the Government has mixed results in its efforts to prosecute the Marcoses and regain their ill-gotten wealth. All that has allowed them to come and stay as if nothing happened before. Again, you have to realize that not everyone was pro-Cory after the revolution. Political butterflies hop to whatever flower is sweetest at the moment and move on when it loses its sweetness. It remains true even today.

The Libingan is intended for Filipinos who have served their country as part of its military services. That means that anyone from the Commander-in-Chief, the presidents, Secretaries of the Department of National Defense, Chiefs of Staff of the Armed Forces and down the chain of command to the soldiers for as long as they were not dishonorably discharged from service or convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude can be buried at the Libingan. This now also includes statesmen who have served with distinction. National Arists and Scientists were also added to the list. 

The argument goes that since Marcos was a soldier and a president, facts that no one can deny, Marcos is therefore entitled to be buried in the Libingan. Could it be that simple? I wish. The list of people entitled to be buried there is qualified. They should not have been dishonorably discharged or convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude. Admittedly, Marcos, again, was neither dishonorably discharged nor convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude. So, it’s a go then? Not yet. The counter-argument goes that this cemetery is not just a cemetery. It is the cemetery for heroes. Marcos, they say, is no hero.

The problem with Marcos is that while he was in fact a president and a soldier, he was also a dictator. As former Solicitor General Florin Hilbay noted, the Philippine legislature had enacted a law that recognizes the rights of the victims of the Marcoses. Moreover, foreign courts have concluded that much of the wealth of the Marcoses were ill-gotten and should be given to their victims. Even the Philippine Supreme Court has said as much. The issue at hand, therefore, is whether or not it matters what kind of soldier or president Marcos was. Will that disqualify him from burial at the Libingan? If a soldier who has been dishonorably discharged or convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude can be disqualified from burial at the Libingan, then would such findings against Marcos be the equivalent of being dishonorably discharged from the presidency? One must note that he never did finish his presidency. Not in the way he would have liked, I’m sure. Does that matter? Does it matter that the reason why he didn’t finish it was that he was ousted from it?

If that is not enough, then one should also note that the Philippines has marked certain events in its calendar: August 21, the anniversary of the death of Ninoy; and February 25, the victory of the EDSA Revolution. Would those have to be revised as well?

The current president wants to bury Marcos at the Libingan. The followers of Marcos too. For them, his burial would bring an end to a sad chapter in Philippine history and allow its people to move on. On the other hand, the people opposed to it — especially the victims of the regime and their families — say that the Philippines has, in fact, moved on. It is the Marcos followers who have not. The burial, however, of one so hated by some in a place reserved for men of valor and those worthy of emulation would be a slap on the face of the countless victims of the old regime. It will, in fact, open old wounds and awaken old hatreds. Better for him to be interred in the land where he is still highly regarded: in the north where he was born, and, if things said are to be believed, also where he wished to be laid to rest.

The question has been raised before the Supreme Court, which is composed mostly of justices appointed by the Arroyo administration that is seen to be supportive of the current administration. That does not necessarily mean that the Supreme Court will rule in favor of the burial but it does show that it is a slippery road ahead for those who oppose said burial. Beyond the emotions behind the parties’ motivations, it would be interesting to hear the legal arguments for and against the burial.

Personally, I think this situation is one of those “just because you can, it doesn’t mean you should” situations. Can they bury Marcos in the Libingan? Yes, they can. Should they? Ah, that, for me, would be a no. As Ex-SolGen Hilbay noted, Filipinos live by symbols and the burial of Marcos in such hallowed ground wouldn’t go unnoticed. We would truly be a miserable lot if we allow the body of a man whose presidency has meant nothing more than pain and suffering to many Filipinos be buried in the Libingan. Yes, we have allowed his family and cronies back. Yes, we’ve allowed them to reintegrate into our society but it does not mean, and it shouldn’t mean, that they are free to do anything they want. No, you can’t bury him in the Libingan. That would be too much already…

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