Marcos was no hero

Nothing could be more insulting. While the nation is in the midst of preparation to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the EDSA People Power Revolution that forced Ferdinand E. Marcos out of office and ended his 20-year tyrannical rule, his son Bongbong Marcos has reopened the proposal to bury the late dictator at the Libingan ng mga Bayani, which is a burial site in honor of those who served the country and fought for freedom and democracy.

Imagine how absurd this will look: 25 years ago we ousted Marcos because of his oppressive rule, then 25 years later we buried him as a hero. This is not only an insult to our dignity as a nation, but an insult to our intelligence as well.

Lest we forget, Marcos ruled the country for two decades under the clutches of oppression and tyranny. During his presidency, there was systematic torturing, killing and disappearance of political dissidents. The number of recorded extra-judicial killings under his rule, known in the vernacular as “salvagings,” exceeds 3,000. This is way more than Chile’s Augusto Pinochet’s record of 2,115 extra-judicially killed during his reign of terror. According to University of Wisconsin history professor Alfred McCoy, in his research work Dark Legacy: Human Rights Under the Marcos Regime, 35,000 people have been tortured and 70,000 incarcerated.

On September 21, 1972, Marcos placed the entire Philippines under martial law. Immediately thereafter, opposition leaders and those critical of his administration have been incarcerated and the media was muzzled. In other words, dissent was stifled as Marcos assumed enormous governmental powers by conferring upon himself, through legal shrewdness, executive and legislative powers. Indirectly, he also controlled the judiciary by appointing to the Supreme Court people beholden to him, which gave him victories over legal challenges to the legitimacy of his actions.

Then came the plunder of the nation’s wealth. Marcos gave monopoly of vital industries to his relatives and associates (cronies) and granted them unfettered access to government loans and subsidies, a practice which came to be known as “crony capitalism.” Bribery involving government contracts became rampant and the public coffers were raided and became sources of personal use and luxuries. According to the PCGG, United Nations and Transparency International, Marcos and his cronies amassed assets amounting to $10-$15 billion US dollars!

Some foreign observers say we, the Filipinos, are forgetful as a nation. This observation seems to be true. Whatever happened to the atrocities of the Marcos regime? Where are his cohorts and family members now, who cannot claim innocence of these egregious acts? Imelda Marcos is now a congresswoman, Imee Marcos is now a governor and Bongbong Marcos is now a senator. Heck, there’s even talk of Bongbong running for the presidency!

As if these absurdity and insults are not enough, Bongbong Marcos even had the temerity to say that had his father not been forced out of power, the country would have been like Singapore now. Seriously, there are some people who say we were better off during Marcos’s time. Maybe a little fact-checking is needed to straighten out this younger Marcos and those who share this ridiculous view.

According to Penn World Table, growth in GDP per capita during the period 1951-1965 is 3.5% compared to the period 1966-1986 (during Marcos’s reign), which is a miserly 1.4%. Unemployment soared to 12.55% in 1985 from 6.30% in 1972. The country’s foreign debt ballooned to $27 billion US dollars when Marcos left office. The gap between the rich and poor widened considerably under Marcos’s rule so much so that, coupled with the atrocities of the authorities, many people became disenchanted with the government and the communist insurgency gained traction, not to mention the founding of the MNLF secessionist movement in Mindanao.

Nineteen years ago, no less than a U.S. District Court delivered justice to the hundreds of human rights victims, by finding Ferdinand E. Marcos to have engaged in systematic human rights abuses and awarded the victims $2 billion US dollars, considered the biggest personal injury award in legal history. Now, here we are talking about the possibility of burying Marcos on the heroes’ pantheon. Come on, let’s get real here folks.

People Power Revolutions

There's a wave of revolutions sweeping the middle east, but not the ideological revolutions of the past characterized by bloodshed and carnage. It is the bloodless revolution of the people: from the streets of Tunisia that has unseated President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, the Tahrir Square of Egypt that led to the ouster of Hosni Mubarak, the streets of Bahrain where there is currently an ongoing clamor for reform, to the streets of Libya that is now threatening the long-running despotic rule of Moammar Gadhafi.

No one could relate more to what is happening in the middle east than us. Twenty five years ago, thousands of Filipinos flocked to the Epifanio Delos Santos Avenue, popularly known as EDSA, to demand the ouster of former president Ferdinand E. Marcos. As history would have it, Marcos was eventually driven out from power by the sheer voice of the people, without guns and bullets.

A few days from now we will be celebrating our preeminent people power revolution. No matter how things turned out thereafter, this event should be remembered by every Filipino, and a stark reminder to our leaders, how the people can elect into - as well as remove from - office a leader no longer worthy of the people's trust and confidence.

Years after the first EDSA, people could be heard complaining, even from among the key players themselves, that things have not changed, if not gotten worse. What these people do not understand, however, is that revolutions are only half the battle and the difficult task of nation-building should come next. Revolutions only pave the way for change. They, of course, change those in power, which is the first most important step toward instituting reform.

After the ouster of a corrupt and despotic regime, the people's revolutionary fervor must continue by seeing to it that change is in fact effected. Hopefully, the events that have unfolded in Egypt and Tunisia will be indications of this. In Egypt, even after the ouster of Mubarak the people still massed at Tahrir Square to celebrate, with a caveat to the military that they could as easily gather to protest if the change they are demanding were not effected. In Tunisia, even after the departure of Ben Ali, protests continued until the care taker government removed from office all of Mubarak's party mates.

EDSA I, as it is now called to distinguish it from the succeeding protest that unseated former president Joseph Estrada and that which sought to unseat former president, now Congresswoman Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, should be cherished for ending Marcos's oppressive regime and restoring our democratic institutions. That many of our countrymen still suffer from abject poverty and corruption is still widespread in our civil service should not downplay the significance of that revolution.

It is in the second half of the battle - that of following through with the gains of the revolution - where we have stumbled. That responsibility should equally be shared by us and those whom we have seated in power.